


Body of Evidence

by orphan_account



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: (and antisemitism), (as in gore related to medical procedures), (omega-ism?), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gore, Graphic Description of Corpses, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, I repeat, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Jack the Ripper AU, Jack the Ripper Murders, M/M, Medical School, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Katsuki Yuuri, Omega Verse, Omega Victor Nikiforov, Omega/Omega, Past Abortion, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Sexism, Prostitution, Serial Killers, Sexual Harassment, We live in a society, i swear to god theres a happy ending tho, medical gore, this is really the author trashing academia in the guise of a serial killer fic, with a HAPPY ENDING!!!!!!!, yuuri and victor are really cute and in love its everyone else who sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2020-11-26 01:29:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 44,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20921918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Lost and alone upon arrival in London, omega medical student Yuuri is rescued by and befriends a famous local prostitute, Victor Nikiforov.Friendship and more blossoms between them, but Victorian society has never been one for tolerance. Yuuri’s professors, his classmates, and an even darker threat lurk in the shadows, ready toripthe two apart.





	1. Mary Nichols

**Author's Note:**

> ITS ANGST BANG TIME BABEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! my first ever bang was so much fun!!!!!! i loved working with Eli Grey ([here](https://unicornsovermyrainbow.tumblr.com)) on this, her art is WONDERFUL and really adds to the story. Please enjoy!!!! Comment if you did!!!!! Serial killers are just boring ass misogynists who go for easy targets they're not cool at all!!!!!!

Yuuri Katsuki is lost.

The street names all blur together as he frantically turns and twists and rearranges his map. London seems to be an endless maze of gloom – soot-stained buildings, trains belching smoke in thick black clouds against a gray sky, crowded streets of glum faces in dark colored suits and dresses.

Japan has tasted the fires of industry – trains and factories and electricity blossoming like flowers in the springtime, faster than Yuuri can catch his breath, but his little home town of Hatsetsu still seems like an idyllic paradise that time forgot.

There’s grass there, lush, rolling green hills and rice paddies, waves crashing against a sandy white shore. The rumble of fishermen as they make their way to the docks with warm golden sunlight just barely peeking over the horizon, the noise of a few alphas in search of a hot breakfast at the inn raising Yuuri from a deep slumber to begin the day.

Yuuri’s been in London for all of a few hours, and the strangeness of it is frightening. The buildings look like nothing he’s seen at home, rows and rows of murky brown facades that blend together.

It’s difficult for him to find his way, his glasses smudging with the thick smog, the dense air clinging to the back of his throat. The western dresses he’s bought choke at his throat, the fabric stiff and itchy – his long hair is tied in a too-tight knot at the nape of his neck. It pulls, sending little pinpricks of pain into his scalp every time he turns his head. Even so, even dressed in western garb, Yuuri feels the eyes of the city on him.

Perhaps his scent is unfamiliar – something about it foreign in the same way his appearance is. He doesn’t know how many of the people he sees have met an Asian before, let alone an Asian omega.

Yuuri swallows. The alphas here exude aggression in a way he’s not used to – it’s impolite to release your scent in public in Hatsetsu, it should be reserved for intimacy between bonded alphas and omegas – but it’s not just that their thick musk is ever-present. It’s that they seem to direct it at _him_ as he walks past, and Yuuri can’t help the slight sourness of distress from leaking into his own scent.

He feels seen, here. Yuuri has never wanted to be seen – a part of him wanted London to be an escape from his traditionalist small town. It was never proper for an omega to want to be a doctor. They allowed it when he was young, but once he properly presented, it was expected that he’d find an alpha and begin having babies to grow the town. He’d sit, fat and content in the house, cooking and cleaning with the pups at his swollen breast.

It certainly wasn’t expected that he’d continue studying with Minako, the town doctor, and turn down any alpha suitor who came to court him. His friend Yuuko had given birth to three beautiful babies, and there he was at the age of twenty, childless and aging, eggs settling and shriveling inside of him.

By the end of it, only Minako and his family would even deign to speak with him. Everyone else was too polite to be outright cruel to him, but they certainly didn’t want to be near him, as though his eccentric life choices were a communicable disease. He remembers the whispers from the town, the ugly stares – alphas from lower and lower backgrounds speaking to his father as though he wasn’t even there, as though their hand in marriage would save the family from total societal ruin.

London was supposed to be an escape, but now with the curious stares of the British at his foreign appearance, Yuuri feels like a spotlight is shining on him.

It’s terrifying. He’s terrified – carrying with trembling arms two thick suitcases with all his worldly possessions.

Someone bumps into him, snarling something with a thick accent, and Yuuri stumbles, off kilter and struggling to right himself from the force of being pushed aside.

He only puts the one suitcase down for an instant, its black leather blending in with the street below, and suddenly he feels the whoosh of his skirts and sees the man grab his bag but-

It’s too late. Yuuri stumbles, tripping over his thick skirts as the man, no – the child, dips in between the sea of people, Yuuri’s suitcase gripped between smoke-stained hands.

“Stop,” Yuuri cries, “Stop, thief, stop-”

A few faces turn, and Yuuri runs in the direction the child had, but he’s weighted down by dress and bags, and the crowds constrict him as he tries to squeeze through.

He jerks forward, foot catching on an uneven stone, and his glasses tumble to the ground as he attempts to right himself. There’s a lump in his throat, a numb, tingling feeling in his hands, and Yuuri drops to his knees with tears in his eyes as he fumbles on the ground for his glasses.

He feels them, sees the shine of their rims against the dark ground, and his thumb runs over the lenses frantically to ensure they’re not broken. He sniffles, biting his lip, painfully aware of the people around him, the humiliation of being on his knees in the middle of a lonely, crowded city.

There’s a splotch of sooty water on the lens of his glasses, and Yuuri swallows down his tears desperately as he wipes them on his nice new dress, fingers clenched on the handle of his other suitcase so hard his knuckles are white. Around him, people murmur, turning their heads to the side.

“Someone stole my bag,” he says to a shopkeeper, “Someone – can you help me?”

“What do you want me to do about it?” The shopkeeper snaps. “That’s not my problem.”

The sun is beginning to set.

It’s gray up above, so the sky doesn’t glow with lovely reds and pinks, it just darkens like soot on a white wall. Yuuri is looking for his student housing – a bit of a trek from the College of Physicians, but that can’t be helped. There are no omegas’ dorms by the medical school.

Yuuri bites back sniffles as he moves along.

The boat ride made him queasy, trapped in cramped and airless rooms with the sparse omegas and their screaming babies. Now that he’s on land, though, it still feels as though his legs are swaying – the streets are swaying. As he walks, alphas wolf-whistle at him, and he stares determinedly, wretchedly at the ground.

It’s getting dark, and Yuuri has no idea where he is, and he’s too terrified to ask anyone for help.

The buildings here are shabby, the streets rougher somehow. The alphas and omegas around seem to have a grim sort of look about them, the mothers with children look tired and drawn.

Yuuri stops. He looks around, takes stock of where he is, the way the paint on the buildings is flecked and cracked, the garbage littering the streets, the small clusters of alphas smoking acrid tobacco from pipes with grimy glass steins of dark beer. Yuuri doesn’t know where he is, but suddenly, where he is makes him very nervous.

He can’t even read the signs, and for a second he wonders if his English is failing him – but no, these closed shops and cafes have a strange writing on them, blocky, like nothing he’s ever seen before. They swim in his teary eyes, adding to the fear consuming him.

“You lost there, love?”

An alpha has stopped in front of him, big and imposing, beer dripping from the tips of his handlebar mustache. He sways a little, belching loudly.

Yuuri doesn’t answer, fear gripping him, palms clammy with cold sweat.

“Ah, do you speak English?” the alpha asks, raising his voice. “I said ARE – YOU-”

“Yes,” Yuuri whispers, staring deeply into the man’s barrel chest, at the stain on his shirt. Smoke and beer can’t quite mask the sharp pine of the alpha’s scent, and something about it is wholly unpleasant to Yuuri’s nostrils. He’s shaking, distress permeating his scent now, drowning out the sweet rose and chrysanthemum.

“Yes?”

“Yes, I, ah, speak – s-speak English...”

“I can show you around,” the alpha leers, reaching out his hand. “Wouldn’t want a little omega like you getting hurt.”

Fear spikes in Yuuri’s stomach, and his eyes fill with tears he stammers, “I, ah, I...”

“Allston, leave him alone.”

Soft omega scent washes over him, warm cinnamon and candied ginger. Yuuri lets out a soft sob of relief, turning to find the source of the sweet voice, the accent curling with a musical lilt. His eyes widen, jaw dropping as his fear is momentarily forgotten.

The omega in front of him is the most beautiful person he’s ever seen. He’s tall, slender – his hair is a waterfall of gleaming silver down his back. When Yuuri meets his gaze, it’s like staring into the deep blue waves on the beaches of Hatsetsu, like Yuuri could drown in his eyes.

“Ooh,” Allston leers, “Is he one of yours, then? You showing him the ropes? I’ll buy both of you, let you show him how I like-”

“You can’t afford me,” the omega says, coolly. “Why don’t you go back to bothering the barmaids? They’re more on your level.”

“Why you-” Allston snaps. He takes a step forward – and so does the omega. He’s _tall_, Yuuri notes, though the conversation is way over his head. Taller than Allston, that’s for sure. Taller than most people Yuuri’s seen here, alpha and omega alike.

After a brief staring match, though, Allston stalks off with an angry grunt, snarling, “Uppity _bitch_,” behind him.

Yuuri has never seen an omega stand their ground like that, with no one but his own grit behind him. His kaasan is strong, always stands up for herself, but his tousan is always there to support her.

He swallows, feeling very small, even as the omega turns to him with a pretty smile and asks, “What’s your name, darling?”

Yuuri doesn’t answer, words sticking in his throat as he stares. His hands are still shaking, and he feels so, so weak.

“Ah, I’m sorry – do you speak English?”

That gets Yuuri’s attention.

“_Yes_ I speak English,” he snaps. “Why does everyone- I’m just _lost_, and no one will help me, and my suitcase got stolen, and everyone k-keeps asking if I speak English and the alphas call out at me, and… And...”

Yuuri breaks off, tears falling down his cheeks, now. He takes a deep, shaky breath, and exhales it with a low sob, feeling miserable and alone as he catches sight of the pretty omega’s shocked expression. _Please,_ he thinks, _leave me be, don’t talk to me, I can’t bear looking weak in front of others-_

Soft lips press against his, and the omega’s warm spice-scent washes over him. It’s soothing, calming, just the omega’s pheromones immediately putting his mind more at ease. For a moment, Yuuri leans into the kiss – and then remembers where he is, and what he’s doing, and he immediately pulls back with a horrified squeak.

The omega is blushing, now, cheeks a lovely pastel pink. He stares away from Yuuri, sheepish.

“I’m sorry,” he admits, “I don’t know what to do when someone’s crying in front of me.”

Yuuri stares at him, wide-eyed, the shock of being kissed drawing him away from his misery for just a moment. He’s never been kissed before. Never, and now, from the most beautiful omega he’s seen his life-

Isn’t it supposed to only feel good with an alpha, though?

The omega clears his throat, holding out his hand inexplicably, “I’m Victor, by the way.”

Yuuri swallows. His nerve endings feel like they’re on fire, his face a childish red. He wrings his hands together, playing with a frayed edge of one of his sleeves nervously. “Yuuri,” he whispers, giving the hand a professional shake, “I’m Yuuri.”

Victor smiles, blue eyes crinkling with warmth. He reaches for Yuuri’s suitcase and Yuuri yelps, pulling it away from Victor’s grasp. Yuuri thinks he just wants to help, but he’s scared, now, scared because he’s lost all his clothes but the ones on his back, so no one can touch his things again.

Victor holds up his hand in a gesture of surrender, and instead takes his shawl off, wrapping it comfortingly around Yuuri’s shoulders. It smells like him, and Yuuri’s flush deepens.

“Well, Yuuri, how do you feel about coming by for a cup of hot tea? I can help you get sorted.”

Yuuri nods, half dazed, and lets Victor lead him away.

“Seriously?” someone snaps from down the hall, “Vitya, at this hour? At least wait until _after_ we’ve come back.”

Yuuri whirls around to see a grizzled, balding old alpha man beside an equally severe beta woman with cheekbones sharper than her piercing green eyes. The man holds the leash to an almost anachronistically cheerful poodle, who _boofs_ energetically and pads forward to sniff at Victor’s feet.

Victor pats the poodle with a grin while Yuuri wilts under their stares, fighting the urge to hide behind Victor like a child.

Victor, however, is unfazed – he puts his hands on his hips and sticks his tongue out at them. “Yuuri is _lost_. I’m just helping him out, for your information. Look, he’s an omega, like me.”

The alpha mutters something that sounds like, “Not that that matters much to you.” He narrows his eyes at Victor and snaps, “Well then, you have plenty of time to come to services with us this evening. You really ought to, foolish boy. It’s what your mother would want.”

“Absolutely not,” Victor says, cheerily. His eyes flash, and there’s an edge to his bright smile. He puts one hand on Yuuri’s back and guides him quickly into his apartment before the alpha can snap at him again. “Good night Yakov, Lilia.” He purses his lips and says, in cooing babytalk, “Good night Makkachin.”

Yuuri blinks, shaking his head, and lets Victor lock the door behind them.

“I’m sorry that I asked if you could speak English,” Victor says, sheepish, once they’re inside. “I suppose it was rather insensitive of me, wasn’t it?”

He putters around the kitchen – a small but quite modern looking thing with a stove and even a private spigot for water to come out. In the privacy of his home, Victor removes his outerlayers, so Yuuri can see the slender form of his body beneath his shirt and skirts. He moves around so effortlessly, not tripping over the layers and layers of fabric, not hindered by heavy material and boot buckles catching on the inside of his petticoats.

Victor also braids his hair before he heaves a copper kettle of water onto a burner, and it dawns on Yuuri that he’s the only person he’d seen outside with his hair long and not pinned and tied up.

“It’s alright,” Yuuri says, softly. His hands are still shaking, the loss of his suitcase like a wound, the whole world around him so unfamiliar from what he’s used to. That was supposed to be a good thing, but now all he wants is to be home in his mother’s sweet honeysuckle embrace, walking with Minako along the salty seashore, helping prepare the inn for guests from all over Japan.

“You’d think I’d know better,” Victor laughs, shaking his head. His ears are pierced, and pretty little tear-drop jewels dangle at his lobes. “I’m from Russia, myself. When I first moved here, I truly didn’t speak English. Got stuck in quite a few nasty situations.” He smiles softly, sadly. “Got myself taken advantage of more than once.”

“Thank you for helping me,” Yuuri murmurs. “I – they took my suitcase, it wasn’t much, but m-my clothes…” He bites his lip, tapping at the smaller leather bag with his boot. “At least it wasn’t this one. That’s where all my papers are, photographs of my family...”

“Silver linings,” Victor says, glancing back at him. “Don’t worry, about it, alright? We can take a look in the morning.”

Something in Victor’s expression makes Yuuri think Victor does not think much of the value of his clothes, and he sighs and sits at the little wooden table, grumbling as he tries to arrange his skirts in a way that’s comfortable. Yuuri misses his dog. He misses his wet doggy kisses and his soft brown fur and how he’ll curl up on Yuuri’s pillow, right beside him as he goes to bed at night.

The kettle howls, a piercing shriek that makes Yuuri jump with fright, and Victor busies himself with pouring the steaming water into a teapot with gnarled black leaves swirling around inside of it.

“Alright,” Victor says, smiling at him as he places the teapot down with a soft _clink_. “We’ll just let that steep. Do you take cream and sugar?”

That, for some reason, is too much for him. He would never dare put cream or sugar into the tea at home – and it’s this, above all else, that solidifies in his mind just how far from home he is.

Tears well up in Yuuri’s eyes, and he begins to weep, burying his face in his trembling hands.

“I’m – I’m sorry,” Victor stammers, “I’m still not sure what to do, here. I haven’t seen another person cry in such a long time.”

Yuuri hates this, hates being seen as the weak, crying omega. He groans, frustrated, and leans his head against Victor’s shoulder, crying against him half in frustration half in homesickness. Victor swallows, audibly, warm scent coloring with just a bit of distress, and he rubs Yuuri’s back nervously, long fingers running soothing strokes up and down.

“It’ll be alright,” Victor murmurs, “I’ll help you, alright? I’ll help you.”

Yuuri nods, miserably, still crying into the shoulder of a stranger, inhaling his sweet scent deeply. Victor’s arms wrap around him, tentatively, then more sure, and Yuuri burrows into Victor’s chest. He feels so safe here, so much more secure than he’d been since he set foot on that boat in the Fukuoka harbor.

“I’m supposed to find my housing, but I don’t know where I am,” Yuuri cries. “I’m s-supposed to make my family proud, I came all the way here for medical school, b-but I can’t even find my way around.”

All the while, Victor holds him, wraps him in his arms and his sweet scent.

Victor tilts his chin up so their eyes meet. For an instant, Yuuri thinks that Victor is about to kiss him, and his heartbeat speeds up-

And then Victor says, “How do you feel about staying here tonight, Yuuri? It’s late, and I’d like you to have some tea and rest. Does that sound alright?”

Yuuri swallows and nods, the shock of his day fading just a bit. He takes the cup of tea, inhaling the sweet herbal aroma, and takes a sip. It’s bitter, but it’s warm and comforting all the same.

The adrenaline wears off, slowly, leaving a throbbing ache as Yuuri thinks of his lost suitcase. A little bit of home, stripped away from him.

Victor takes his hand, his thin fingers cold enough that it startles Yuuri. “If you’d like,” he says, softly, “I could take a look around here. See if I see your suitcase. Would you like that?”

Yuuri swallows. There’s such familiarity in the way Victor touches him, like he’s known him his entire life.

“I can’t have you going out alone after dark,” Yuuri murmurs, cheeks coloring a little. “It can’t be safe for an omega out alone.”

Victor doesn’t respond. Yuuri thinks it might be a trick of the light, but his cheeks look a little pink, and he looks down at their entwined hands.

Yuuri yawns, suddenly, breaking their grip to cover his mouth. He flushes, looking away, and hears Victor’s soft laugh.

“Let’s get you washed up,” Victor says, “You must be tired. Feel free to use my things, if you’d like. Any of them.”

Yuuri swallows and nods. Victor takes his hand again and leads him to the bathroom, so different than the hot springs, the deep volcanic pools that Yuuri has lived by since he was born. There’s a small white tub, wide enough that Yuuri could fit if he curled his legs in, a sink and vanity, and most shockingly, a flush toilet, all surrounded by faded, grimy tile. Nothing like the soothing stone and steam of home, the modern convenience of running water somehow frightening.

Tears well up in his eyes again and he ducks his head, already embarrassed by how much he’s cried in front of this stranger. Victor looks like he wants to say something, but instead he gives Yuuri’s shoulder a comforting squeeze, and rummages in a closet for a cotton nightgown, which he passes to Yuuri wordlessly.

Victor’s bed is big, luxurious. It’s the single nicest thing in his apartment, though Yuuri notes a second set of sheets and thick, ostentatious pillows piled in a corner of the room, obviously recently changed into the much more modest décor. The room itself is sparsely furnished, just a bedside table and a few hanging fabrics to give it some character. There are candles on the table, far too close to the hanging fabric for Yuuri’s comfort – and strangely enough, no dresser with clothes.

Now that Yuuri thinks of it, the dresser seemed to be in the main room, stuffed with colorful fabrics and covered with glittering jewels and lace. He frowns, but mostly – mostly, it doesn’t matter. He’s tired, and strung out, and he just wants to sleep on this luxurious bed in Victor’s soft night dress that smells just like him.

He curls up in the bed, barely managing to speak his thanks.

“I’ll be in in just a bit, alright?” Victor murmurs, “Sleep, Yuuri. Sleep. Shh.”

Yuuri’s eyes close, and he slips into inky black as if on command.

Yuuri wakes three times in the night.

The first, it’s from a loud crashing and clattering outside the apartment window. Yuuri gasps and jolts awake, heart pounding, body damp with sweat. He registers, briefly, that he’s alone in the room. Victor must have chosen to sleep on the sofa outside, in the main room – Yuuri tries desperately to swallow down the cold fear that always follows him, ever-present like his own shadow.

As his eyes adjust, he slips out of bed, jolting at the shock of cold floor beneath his feet. He gazes around the silent living room. There’s a lump on the sofa, and Yuuri squints at it. Is it Victor?

“Victor?” he whispers.

No response. Yuuri swallows down his panic, trying to think logically. _He’s probably just asleep. You don’t want to wake him. He’s probably just asleep. _

He runs back into the room, hiding under the covers and trying frantically to calm his pounding heart.

_Go back to sleep,_ he thinks, sinking back into the bed, _go back to sleep-_

The second time, he comes back to consciousness at the rustle of Victor beside him – Yuuri has no idea how late. Victor’s scent curls around him, and Yuuri frowns as he thinks he catches the hint of someone else there, someone with notes of rich chocolate and orange.

“Were you out?” Yuuri mumbles, sleepily.

“Don’t worry about it,” Victor evades, voice rough. “Shh, just sleep. I’m right here.”

The strange extra scent is unpleasant, and Yuuri can’t help but wrinkle his nose at it. Suddenly, all of the questions he’s been ignoring come back to him. Was Victor out, even though it’s incredibly unsafe for an omega, alone? What did that rude alpha mean by _buy_ him? How does a young, single omega have such a nice apartment all to himself, when he himself admitted he came to London with nothing?

“Victor,” Yuuri begins again, but Victor nuzzles into his back, and suddenly Yuuri’s mind comes to a stuttering halt.

“Don’t worry about it,” Victor says again, almost pleadingly. His voice is rough, husky. Yuuri doesn’t know why. “Sleep, darling. Sleep.”

It’s hard for Yuuri to resist. He feels so safe here, in Victor’s apartment, in Victor’s arms. He can ask again in the morning-

And Yuuri wakes again to a furious pounding on the door.

He gasps and sits up in bed, clutching at the sheets while Victor grumbles beside him, rolling around to turn on a bedside lamp. Low light floods the room, the sharp tang of kerosene, and the pounding continues, loud and insistent, accompanied by someone shouting at the door.

Victor rolls his eyes, completely oblivious to the tension in the atmosphere – there’s a _thunk_ and Victor says something in Russian that must be a swear, gripping his knee in pain.

“Don’t,” Yuuri whispers, as Victor leaves the safety of the room. “Wait, Victor-”

He scurries out behind Victor, lingering back as Victor flips on a light and opens the door.

“What do you want, Morrison?” Victor snaps, yawning. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“What do I want?” comes the voice of a growling, grumbling alpha, “What do I – you bitch, you swore you’d be out by Paddy’s tonight.”

Yuuri winces, heart jolting in fear and anger. Why do all these alphas think they can call Victor that!

“Well, I changed my mind,” Victor rolls his eyes. “You can find me some other night. Now if you’ll excuse me-”

The alpha, Morrison, grips the door as Victor tries to close it. His hand connects with the wood with a sick slapping sound, and Yuuri jolts, distress leaking into his scent. Should he cry for help, what should he do-

“Not _tonight_, I said,” Victor raises his voice, eyes flashing as he pushes harder against the unyielding wood. “There are plenty of others out there-”

“But I want _you_-”

“He said not tonight!” Yuuri shouts, stepping forward far more bravely than he feels. These damn alphas, thinking they’re entitled to – well, Yuuri isn’t sure what, surely not what he’s thinking? “Why don’t you listen to him? Leave him alone.”

Victor’s mouth opens in a shocked little “o,” and he flushes prettily as his mouth splits into a wide grin. “Oh, Yuuri darling-”

“Who’s this?” Morrison snaps. “Who’s – you took home an omega before me? I’m an _alpha_, you ought to respect me, and you’re fucking around with some foreign slut-”

Yuuri’s mouth drops open. He’s never heard such vile language in his life, never directed at him. He’s so shocked he nearly forgets to be angry-

But then Victor snaps, “Don’t you dare call him that-” and Morrison grabs his arm hard enough to bruise, and Yuuri yelps in fright, rushing forward to grab Morrison’s shoulder to pull him off-

“_What is going on here?_”

From down the hall, Yakov appears, the light of his lamp accentuating the lines of his face and emphasizing the fury in his eyes. There’s a moment of stand off – Morrison releases his pheromones, so thick Yuuri nearly gags on them. Then, growling, grizzled, and angry, Yakov counters with his own scent. It feels like winter, sharp in the back of his throat, overwhelming Morrison’s immediately.

Morrison’s eyes wide as Yakov storms down the hallway towards them, and he lets go of Victor immediately, stepping back in alarm. Yakov’s won, here, showing himself clearly as the more powerful alpha – and Morrison defers to that, even though Yakov is so much older.

“Begging your pardon, sir,” Morrison sneers, tipping his hat towards Yakov, “I’ll be on my way. Next time keep better track of your pups, hm?”

Yakov shouts something at his back in a harsh, guttural language as he retreats, gnashing his teeth.

For a long, tense moment, there’s silence – Yakov panting, Victor rubbing his arm, Yuuri wringing his hands and glancing back and forth between the two of them. Yuuri can hear Makkachin barking fron inside Yakov and Lilia’s apartment.

Victor tries, “Yakov-”

“You _foolish boy_,” Yakov shouts, loud enough that Yuuri yelps and covers his ears. “You – you… Oh, you _idiot_. I put up with you, with your _activities_,” His lip curls at the word, “As a favor to your mother, because she told me to look after you even though you seem determined to ruin your own life. But I swear to you, Victor Dmitrievna Nikiforova, one more altercation like this and I’ll tell her what exactly you’ve been up to in London.”

Victor’s face goes white. “You wouldn’t,” he whispers.

“Pull another stunt like this and you’ll find out,” Yakov snaps.

“Victor didn’t do anything,” Yuuri can’t help but protest, “It was that alpha who came here-”

“Don’t defend this idiot,” Yakov growls. He eyes Yuuri up and down. “Who are you anyway? You’re not Vitya’s keeper. I’ve never seen you before tonight.”

Yuuri blanches. “Ah. I’m-”

“Bah, it doesn’t matter,” Yakov grumbles. “I’m going back to bed. Don’t make me get up again.”

He stalks off, leaving the two in silence.

Yuuri sighs, shaking his head. All of the pieces fall into place in his head, but they still seem so far removed from the genteel, kind omega who offered him a place to stay.

He can’t help himself from asking, though, “Victor, what does he mean _activities_?”

Victor winces. “I don’t know what you’re asking,” he feigns, not meeting Yuuri’s gaze.

Yuuri’s always been too blunt. He can’t hold his tongue, not like a good omega should, and he blurts out, “All the alphas, the way they talk to you, about you – you’re a prostitute, aren’t you?”

Victor’s eyes widen, his face half-illuminated by the light from inside the apartment. He meets Yuuri’s gaze, steadily, and says, “Yes.”

There were prostitutes in Fukuoka. As part of Yuuri’s medical training, he attended to a few of them. It was unseemly, it just tarnished further his already shaky reputation. Yuuri saw their tired eyes, their beauty, the cough that settled deep into their bodies and rotted them from the inside out. They were all nice to him, though. Offered him tea and little cookies when he’d come to check on them. Yuuri saw how the tension in their bodies went away when Minako left and it was just Yuuri in the room with them, like they felt he’d be kinder to them, like they felt safer around him.

Like Yuuri felt safe with Victor.

Yuuri blows out a breath. “Okay.”

Victor blinks. “Okay?”

Yuuri nods, uncertainly. “Okay. You’ve been incredibly kind to me. You saved me from that alpha, from being lost all alone here. You took me in because you knew how hard it was to be alone in an unfamiliar city. It doesn’t matter to me what you do, then – I’m still grateful to you.”

Victor’s mouth drops open in shock. He doesn’t respond, though a deep flush colors his cheeks, and his eyes go just a little misty. He hugs Yuuri, then, pulls him into his arms and grips him tight.

“Thank you,” he whispers. “For defending me, as well. For this.”

Yuuri swallows, suddenly aware of the feeling of Victor’s body against his, both in their flimsy night dresses. The hallway is dark and quiet, now, the only light coming from inside the apartment.

“Let’s go back to bed,” Victor says, taking Yuuri’s hand.

Yuuri nods and follows him back inside.

“Will I – will I see you again?” Victor whispers, playing with a stray strand of his pinned up hair. He looks lovely this way, the barest hint of neck visible beneath the collar of his coat and shirt. It would be impossible to tell who he was, dressed like this.

Nervousness doesn’t suit him, and Yuuri swallows, taking his hands in his.

The dormitories stand stark behind him, his suitcase already settled in the cramped little room that will be his home until he graduates from medical school. A second suitcase lies beside it, full of Victor’s old clothing, old things from when he first arrived in London. They’re plain, and a little out of fashion, but they’re better than nothing.

“Yes,” Yuuri says, determined. “Once my parents send me the money – I’ll have to give you your clothes back.”

“Oh,” Victor says, deflating.

“But,” Yuuri amends quickly, “I’d be happy to see you before then.”

Victor’s lips quirk up into a heart shaped smile, his eyes sparkle with glee. He pulls Yuuri into a tight hug, giggling, and says, “Wonderful! I’ll pick you up here next Friday at six sharp.”

Yuuri laughs, a little nonplussed, but pleased all the same. He didn’t realize it would be so easy making friends here – he’s always struggled with that at home. “That sounds fantastic, Vitya.”

He hums as Victor wanders home with a wave of his hand. As he heads back to his room, he picks up a paper from a boy with a gap-toothed smile, starting and staring in shock at the front page news.

_WHITECHAPEL’S BLACK RECORD: ANOTHER HORRIBLE MURDER_

_Scarcely have the horror and sensation caused by the discovery of the murdered omega in Whitechapel some short time ago had time to abate, when another victim has been discovered in the same district._

_The affair up to the present is enveloped in considerable mystery, and the police have as yet no evidence by which to trace the perpetrators of the deed._

_The facts are that as Constable Neil was walking down Buck's-row, Thomas-street, Whitechapel, at about a quarter to four O'clock this morning, he discovered a woman between 35 and 40 years of age with her throat cut from ear to ear, the instrument with which the deed was done having traced the throat from left to right._

_The woman was quite dead._

_The wound was about two inches wide, and blood was flowing profusely. In fact, she was discovered to be lying in a pool of blood._

_The body was immediately conveyed to the Whitechapel mortuary, when it was found that besides the wound in the throat, the lower part of the abdomen was completely ripped open, with the bowels protruding-_

Yuuri’s eyes widen as he reads on. A serial killer in London? In Whitechapel? But, that’s where he was last night! That could have been him!

That could have been Victor!


	2. Catherine Eddowes and Elizabeth Stride

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i guess i accidentally cut out poor annie chapman in writing this, sorry annie. 
> 
> i did the bare minimum research on both victorian era stuff and london as a whole, don't @ me

Yuuri swallows. His hands shake, he quakes down to his boots. The one consolation is that the knocking of his knees from terror isn’t visible beneath the many layers of skirts.

“Your exams are graded,” Professor Berger snarls. He makes it sound like a threat, and Yuuri certainly feels it. This is the moment where he finds out that he should never have made it here, that he’ll need to go back to Japan, never see Victor again-

“Bet I did better than you,” one of the alphas nudges his friend in the side.

“Hah, you wish,” the friend responds.

The two other omegas giggle and murmur to each other, two women. Yuuri’s mouth goes dry, and he aches to go chatter with them about his nervousness, but they’ve barely spoken two words to him and always seem to sneer when he approaches to ask questions.

He’s not sure if it’s worse than the alphas in the class, who outright ignore him, except when they occasionally mistake him for a secretary and ask for administrative help.

“I have here on top the highest score in the class,” Professor Berger continues, putting on thick reading glasses with a gnarled old hand. “Pitiful a score it may be. The best and brightest of all of you is-”

He frowns. He squints, eyebrows cocking as though he can’t believe the results. Yuuri’s heart _pounds_, thinking of how disappointed Minako will be when he has to return home in shame, when his only option will be to be married to some alpha who will expect him to have children and give up his dreams-

There’s a very, very long pause.

“There’s clearly been a mistake,” Professor Berger clears his throat. “The residents must have added wrong.”

He turns to his assistant and murmurs something.

The assistant murmurs something back, and Yuuri hears the anger in Professor Berger’s voice as he snaps, “A male omega certainly did _not_ get the highest score in the class.”

Yuuri blinks.

Did he mishear that? He’s the only male omega in the entire class, could he really have – but no, no, just as Professor Berger said, there must have been some mistake. Of all of the students here, there’s no way he, a dime a dozen male omega from Japan, could have scored higher on an anatomy exam than the rich alphas from the finest schools all across England.

Professor Berger puts his exam on the bottom of the stack with a sneer of disgust, and humiliation burns Yuuri down to his bones. Around him, his classmates chatter, laughing without showing their teeth and hiding their scorn behind their hands. They stare at him, just like the people on the streets when he first arrived, their eyes flitting from him to each other knowingly.

They say things about him as though he can’t understand.

“Anyway, the lowest exam score goes to on Ronan O’Connor. Try harder next time or perhaps reconsider your career choice.”

Yuuri swallows _hard_.

“How fucking _rude_,” Victor snaps, pacing back and forth in his apartment with blue eyes blazing.

Yuuri winces. He’s still not really gotten used to Victor’s language, but he does appreciate the sentiment. He settles back into his chair takes a sip of the tea Victor had prepared – very, very bitter, though he still doesn’t dare add cream and sugar – and crosses his ankles under the table.

“You know?” Victor continues, “You know? I bet they were wrong, too. I bet you _did_ get the highest score in the class. I mean, do they really think the residents who were grading the exam couldn’t _count_? Ugh. Ugh! It’s because you’re an omega, I just know it. They would never have made such a fuss if an alpha had gotten the top score.”

Yuuri sighs. “The professor said he didn’t believe it was possible that an omega could have the highest score.”

Victor whirls around, thick braid whipping behind him. “See? I was right. You ought to – you ought to march back to that school and tell them you’ve been disrespected. That they’re going to scare away their best student, and that you’re better than any silly old alpha-”

Yuuri smiles, letting him ramble on for a bit. “I am glad you think so highly of me,” he murmurs, blushing, “And I wish you were right, I’m truly – truly mediocre. I’m afraid I’ve fooled everyone, including the admissions committee.”

Victor sighs, shaking his head, dislodging a few strands of long silver hair tucked back in his braid. Victor could never look _plain_, not when his beauty is so striking, but there’s something simple and lovely about the way he looks with his hair braided, no makeup, just soft lips and white eyelashes.

“I’ll have you know,” he sniffs, “That I have slept with some of the smartest, finest alphas in all of London. And I think you’re just as intelligent as any of them, maybe even moreso.”

Yuuri laughs, covering his face as the sound bursts out of him in a most ungainly fashion. His cheeks heat as Victor smiles at him, and he plays with a stand of long black hair that’s come loose from Yuuri’s tight bun.

Yuuri can’t help but think how his own simple hairstyle just makes him look matronly, severe. It’s so tight, anyway, to keep it out of his face during anatomy practicals.

“I certainly can’t claim to be surrounded by those of a higher intellect,” Yuuri offers, apologetically. “You really should hear the things some of these alphas have to say, as though they’ve never known anything but what they’ve read in a book.”

“They probably haven’t,” Victor snorts.

“And, dear lord, the things I’ve overheard on the matter of omega anatomy,” Yuuri shakes his head in disbelief. “One alpha expressed the utmost confusion when he found out that the omega urinary tract and reproductive passage were separate.”

Victor dissolves into a fit of giggles, covering his mouth with his hands. “Oh, I _know_ how little those alphas know about omega anatomy. I cannot tell you how many of them seem to be laboring under the misconception that the key to omega pleasure lies in thrusting as hard against their womb as possible.”

“Goodness!” Yuuri squeaks, legs squeezing together involuntarily. “That’s, how could they…” His face suddenly goes very, very red. “I mean, not that I, I just thought perhaps it’d be good to know, academically, in preparation for when I share a heat with my bonded alpha-”

Victor snorts gracelessly at this, throwing his head back and not bothering to cover up his teeth as he laughs. He settles onto the floor before Yuuri, folding his arms on top of Yuuri’s knees.

Yuuri feels very, very hot beneath his starched white chemise, and he’s hyper-aware of his own body, suddenly not quite sure what he should be doing with his hands.

“No need to practice shyness with me,” Victor murmurs, smiling warmly up at Yuuri. “You can tell me what you know of _omega anatomy.” _

“I’m,” Yuuri stammers, “I mean, we have heats, so it’s difficult not to know a little. I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be _lustful_, though, it was simply to get through it all...”

“What’s wrong with lustful?” Victor teases, resting his cheek on his own folded arms, “Once omegas know what we want, what we _need, _we won’t settle for some second-rate alpha. I would love to shout the liberating joy of omega pleasure to all of England, but alas I’m not sure who would listen to me.”

“I would,” Yuuri says, a bit too quickly, suddenly overcome with heat as his mind wonders what Victor could teach him about _omega pleasure_. “I feel you have far more to teach me than some of those stuffy alphas at the university.”

“I hope so,” Victor murmurs, not quite meeting his gaze.

They’re at a pub. Yuuri doesn’t really go out much – none of the other students seem to want to be seen with him. In Hatsetsu, it was the alpha’s job to entertain guests at the inn. The omegas would wait on them, silently, supplying drink and good food - Yuuri not allowed to meet Mari’s gaze as she joked with one of the village fishermen.

He’s – he’s never gone out much.

The pubs here have a griminess to them that Yuuri initially balks at – Victor wanted to take him out for a lesson on an endemic part of British culture, but the noise is _loud, _a raucous mix of drunken laughter, scraping benches, shattering glass.

Loud, loud, loud.

The air is thick with pipe smoke and sweat and wheaty beer.

Yuuri clings to Victor as he sits them both down at a table and motions to a pretty, busty barmaid for two beers.

The rush of a tap opening, the fizz of foam at the top of a mug.

Victor rubs soothing circles into Yuuri’s shoulder, says sympathetically, “This place is far nicer with a good bit of drink in you.”

Yuuri doubts that very much, but he smiles politely and takes a sip of the beer when the maid plops the mugs in front of them, his fingers twitching with something to do other than play with a fraying hem of his – Victor’s – dress.

It’s not great. Yuuri makes a face and takes another sip, already feeling the heat in his cheeks. Victor drinks gracelessly, foam forming a mustache over his pink lip, and Yuuri giggles, relaxing just a little. For everything about him that is delicate and dainty, Victor’s tastes, his thirsts and hungers, are voracious. Yuuri’s seen him put full pastries in his mouth, seen him swig beer in three gulps.

It makes Yuuri wonder about his other hungers, what his mouth is like with his clients.

Yuuri flushes at the thought, but the haze of the bar makes everything seem too warm. Victor’s body is against his constantly, his hands in Yuuri’s hands, his arm around Yuuri’s shoulders, his legs against Yuuri’s on a bench. They don’t need to be so close, but somehow Yuuri craves it. If they were to sit further apart, Yuuri isn’t sure he’d be able to bear it.

Yuuko used to talk about Takeshi – say that his hands on her shoulders made her heart pound, that she’d do anything to see him happy. Is that what being with Victor is? Even though Victor is an omega, too?

When he thinks of Victor touching him beneath his skirts, is that because he’s simply curious what Victor knows, as a prostitute, or would he think that regardless? Yuuri has never felt this way about anyone before.

Does Victor, beautiful, smart Victor, feel the same? That would be impossible. Yuuri can’t fathom it.

Victor is already ordering something else, his beer half-drunk, and Yuuri struggles to catch up though he feels as though he’s eating heavy bread with each sip. There are two glasses in front of them, now, full of a clear liquid which is definitely not water, and Victor winks at him as he downs it in one go.

Yuuri misses the food and drink of home. Here it’s all beer and bread, beer and bread.

He downs the burning, clear alcohol in one go, as Victor did, and Victor’s face splits into a lovely, proud grin.

“Vodka,” Victor rasps, and he motions for two more glasses. “Put it on my tab, give us the finest you’ve got.”

The barmaid snorts. It’s suddenly very warm, long strands of hair sticky against the back of Yuuri’s neck.

Victor leans in and whispers, conspiratorially, “I’ll fuck the manager later. Won’t pay a dime for this.”

Yuuri chokes on his swig of beer, and alcohol shoots unpleasantly up his nose. Victor yelps to avoid the spray, using the front of his dress to wipe Yuuri’s running nose and eyes as he coughs. He’s so embarrassed it burns, but in the bar no one notices a bit more noise, and Victor laughs and rucks up his skirts to wipe the beer from Yuuri’s face.

“Ah, Victor!”

Victor turns and Yuuri flinches – no one calling for Victor has had good intentions. Anger boils in his blood as he thinks of another alpha trying to claim Victor for the night when Victor wants to be with _him_.

Unlike the other times, though, Victor’s troubled expression splits into a wide, friendly grin, and he laughs, “Christophe! So good to see you, darling.”

An omega with tan skin and green eyes and thick, dark lashes comes over to wrap Victor in an embrace. Yuuri is hit with a sudden, violent wave of jealousy, and he tries to swallow it down. _Don’t invite him to sit with us_, he thinks.

“Why don’t you come sit with us!”

Yuuri glowers, then feels immediately guilty. It’s not like… It’s not as though he _owns_ Victor. They barely met a few months ago, of course he has other friends, relations he’s made over the course of his time here.

Even though he’s never met any of them in the time he’s been here.

Victor giggles and downs another shot. Yuuri does as well, feeling suddenly much bolder. He stares down Christophe as Christophe joins them, drinking something that glints like rich amber.

“That one looks like your eyes,” Victor mumbles into Yuuri’s ear, cheeks pink.

Victor and Christophe chat for a bit, Yuuri sitting mulishly beside them, still trying to stomach the beer. His hands keep sliding to Victor’s, and he seems to be unable to stop himself from touching Victor – his shoulders, his cheek, his arm - as he speaks. Victor seems to lean into the touch, too, and he nuzzles into Yuuri’s shoulder.

“I know,” Victor grins after a little while, “Let’s play a game!”

“Game?” Yuuri cocks his head to the side.

“Yes,” Victor giggles, stealing Yuuri’s still mostly full mug of beer from him. “The game is, you drink the beer, and for each drink, you add an equal amount of vodka. Like so.”

He takes a swig, wiping the foam from his upper lip, and pours in the vodka. Yuuri snatches the mug back before Christophe can take it and takes a swig of his own, trying to hide how he gags at the taste.

“So, how do you two know each other?” Yuuri asks Christophe, keeping his voice light.

Christophe looks to Victor fondly, taking his own turn. “Victor helped me out of a bad spot, a while ago. We’ve been friends ever since.”

“What a coincidence,” Yuuri says, too loud. Victor jolts against him. “That’s how we met, too. He’s very helpful, isn’t he?”

“We’re also _coworkers_,” Victor giggles, again. He seems to find everything funny in this state, his cheeks pink and his eyes glassy and unfocused with drink, even as he takes his turn from the mug, sloshing some vodka out of the bottle and onto the floor.

“Colleagues,” Christophe laughs.

“Brothers in arms,” Victor snorts gracelessly, winking.

Yuuri scowls. His hands shake as he takes the mug, one part beer to three parts vodka, and in a surge of boldness downs the entire thing in one go. He meets Christophe’s gaze as he slams it down on the table and fills it to the brim with vodka.

Victor stares up at him, mouth open in a pretty pink o, and Yuuri goes bright red with humiliation.

“I,” he stammers, “I, uh...”

Victor _howls_ with laughter. His whole body shakes and tears stream down his cheeks as he flings his arms around Yuuri’s neck.

“Wow,” he coos, “So _talented._”

He nuzzles into Yuuri’s chest, giggling. The alcohol is hitting Yuuri all at once, and suddenly things are fuzzy and warm, and he laughs as he straddles the bench to hold Victor closer.

“I need to get more beer,” Victor laughs. “I’ll be back for your turn, Chris.”

The warm spot at his chest disappears when Victor gets up, swaying slightly, and Yuuri grins stupidly as he watches Victor walk over to the bar.

Then, Christophe snorts into his hand that Yuuri realizes he’s straddling the bench, staring at Victor like a lovesick puppy. He coughs, looking down.

“You should know,” Christophe says, “I have no romantic interest in Victor.”

The blood drains from Yuuri’s face. Was he really that obvious? “I, uh, I mean, that’s-”

“It’s alright,” Christophe raises his hand, grinning wryly. “He certainly is alluring, isn’t he? And he deserves someone devoted to him.”

Yuuri swallows thickly. He’s very, very drunk, and now he feels like a complete idiot. He was outright hostile to a complete stranger, just because the stranger was taking up his time with Victor.

“I don’t have many friends here. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have,” Yuuri whispers, wondering if Christophe can even hear him over the din, “I suppose I… I thought I’d lose him. I feel like I’m constantly needing to prove myself to people here and – and you’re far more interesting than me.”

“I’m not sure everyone would agree with that,” Christophe shakes his head, the wry smile still on his face.

“I’m sorry again,” Yuuri stammers, wringing his hands. “I never, I’ve never – I’m not usually like this. I’m glad he’s got people who care for him aside from me, truly.”

Christophe shakes his head wistfully. “He’s always been very guarded. I suppose I’ve tried occasionally to get close, but he never wanted to let me in. It’s good, now, that he’s found you. I worry he’s lonely.”

“Me?” Yuuri squeaks. He sighs. “I worry about that, too.”

“Even when he’s working, he keeps chattering about you,” Christophe says. “One of his clients thought you might be a lover when he tried to pick him up. He got really angry.”

“They always get angry at him,” Yuuri murmurs. “I don’t know why he stays.”

“They might very well do that if he were made their wife,” Chris points out, “At least this way he gets to enjoy himself. When I hear married omegas talk about how unsatisfied they are with their husbands, and I think of my last client, who willingly dropped to his knees and put his mouth-”

“Okay!” Yuuri squeaks, “Okay! I understand your point.”

“I think he’d be happy with someone who could pleasure him, and care for him,” Chris continues pointedly. “Though I’m not sure he’d stop. Once you get a taste of the money you can make, and thinking how it’s not much more dangerous than working at a seamstresses or in a factory… It’s difficult to let go.”

Yuuri shakes his head sadly. “I hope he can find someone who will treat him well,” he says, thinking of how little he knows of any of this. Victor deserves better than him.

“Yes,” Chris says, a little more firmly, brow furrowed in confusion. “I hope he can too. Or perhaps he’s already found someone.”

Yuuri’s heart thumps painfully in his chest. Ah, of course.

“Victor helped me when I first arrived here,” Yuuri says, shaking his head fondly to change the subject. “I was lost, it was getting dark, I was afraid. He was so kind to me.”

“He’s a kind person,” Christophe’s smile softens. He seems exasperated, though Yuuri can’t figure out why.

“How… How did help you?” Yuuri murmurs, leaning forward on the bench.

Just as Christophe opens his mouth, though, Victor returns with another foaming mug of beer. Yuuri feels queasy just looking at it, but all of that melts away as Victor settles back between his legs, laying back on the bench. His head rests in the crook of Yuuri’s neck, Yuuri’s breath hot against Victor’s ear.

On the bench, Victor’s legs splay out, and his skirts have rucked up enough that Yuuri can see the moon-white of his calves. His mouth goes very dry, and he buries his face in Victor’s long silver hair to distract himself from the sight of them.

“Mm,” Victor mumbles, snuggling in even closer, “Shall we keep going?”

Getting back to Victor’s apartment is a struggle. When the two of them finally sway and stumble and stop to vomit on the side of the road their way back, it’s all they can do collapse on Victor’s bed, trying hard not to knock heads as they try to get comfortable on the mattress and undo their outerlayers.

Yuuri whines, picking at the fastenings of his corset at the front, fingers unable to find the dexterity to undo the closures.

“Mm, let me,” Victor slurs, sliding his body sloppily over Yuuri’s. Yuuri groans, the whole room spinning above him, trying so hard to focus on Victor’s face.

Suddenly, Victor’s fingers are at his breast, sliding beneath the boning of the corset, and Yuuri inhales sharply. His fingers send electric shocks down Yuuri’s body, right down between his legs, where he feels a strange tingling sensation.

Victor undoes the corset, fingers hooking underneath each eyelet and popping them open one by one, his knuckles brushing Yuuri’s breastbone. Victor’s other hand holds Yuuri’s hip steady, his thumb running circles along the sharp bone there.

“Victor,” Yuuri breathes, pressing his thighs together as though it’ll stop the heat building between them, “How did you help Christophe?”

Victor smiles sadly. His hands still as he says, “Christophe arrived here like you, like me. From a foreign country, not knowing anyone. He wound up finding a place with my old landlord. My old landlord, she… Expects you to work for your rent. And she just so happens to know many an alpha who would be willing to pay for your body. You’re foreign, you are an omega alone, you barely speak the language… What kind of work can you do but this?”

Yuuri’s eyes go very, very wide, and he props himself up on his elbows. Victor won’t meet his gaze. “Victor,” he breathes, “that’s horrible. That’s _horrible_, how dare she take advantage of you like that.”

“It was a long time ago,” Victor says. He still doesn’t meet Yuuri’s gaze. “I found Chris some clients that would pay a pretty penny for him, so he could live in a nicer place, have more control. It wasn’t a good honest living, but Chris didn’t seem to mind. It’s all I could do, anyway.”

“It seems like it was more than enough,” Yuuri breathes. “Victor, I’m so sorry. I wish I could have been there for you. I would have helped you.”

Victor cups Yuuri’s cheek, eyes soft and sad. “I’m sure you would have, but I’m alright now, really.” He kisses Yuuri’s forehead, and the wet spot he leaves tingles down to Yuuri’s toes. His hands are splayed on Yuuri’s neck, just beside his scent gland. “I like being in the business of pleasing others. I’d even-”

He goes bright red and covers his mouth, shaking his head with embarrassment.

“Still,” Yuuri presses on, stubborn, “She never should have-”

Victor pops open the last of the eyelets, the sides of the corset pressed against his chest, and suddenly Yuuri intimately understands why those novels Victor has hidden under his bed are called bodice rippers. Victor spreads his hands underneath, the starched canvas and boning falling to Yuuri’s sides on the bed. It feels unbelievably erotic, Victor undressing him slowly, his hands on the sensitive flesh of his chest. The only thing separating them from Yuuri’s bare skin is the thin cotton chemise, and his hands brush over Yuuri’s nipples, pebbled in the cold air, hard from Victor’s scent and Victor’s touch and Victor all around him.

“You know,” Victor mumbles, running his fingers through Yuuri’s thick black hair. “You look beautiful with your hair down.”

And then he leans over the side of the bed and vomits into his chamber pot.

Yuuri wrinkles his nose at the pig’s foot in front of him. His sutures are sloppy, ugly, and he lets out a low groan of frustration as he ties them off and snips off the ends. He’s been practicing every day, but he doesn’t feel like he’s improved at all. As a doctor, he’ll need to sew wounds up with precision, so that they can prevent blood from leaking out – he’ll need to make sure they don’t get infected, keep them clean-

And he can’t do that if his sutures look this damnably _awful._

He tosses the rubbery, smelling of formaldehyde pig’s foot across the table, where it sits with a sick _thud_ and seems to stare at him reproachfully.

Yuuri has seen so many pig’s feet, dissected his fair share of fetal piglets, he’s not sure he could comfortably eat a pork chop ever again. Which is fine, he supposes, considering Victor doesn’t really eat pork.

Yuuri’s diet at home was mostly fish-based. He’s gotten very fond of English jellied eel, much to Victor’s horror.

Jellied eel, pickled eel, pickled herring. Near where Victor lives are vendors who sell pickled vegetables, massive barrels full of cucumbers and other such things pickling in a greenish spiced brine. Yuuri misses the rich, flavorsome nature of soy sauce and miso paste.

Victor is a very good cook, though, so even if it’s not what he’s used to Yuuri will accept his interesting fusion of British and Russian cuisine gratefully. Mince pies with stewed beets on the side, breaded and fried chicken cutlets, home made fish and chips. Boiled beef and chicken and potato stews, but with spices like dill and with sour cream on top.

Yuuri’s so lost in thought of food, of what Victor is going to cook for him when he visits later in the evening, that he doesn’t hear Doctor Berger approach until he snaps, “What are you doing here without supervision, Miss Katsuki?”

Yuuri leaps what feels like a foot in the air. He whirls around, quickly readjusting his askew glasses, gripping the ruffled fabric at his breast as though that’ll calm his pounding heart.

“I,” he gasps, “Professor Cialdini allowed me to use the room to practice my suturing.”

“I see why,” Doctor Berger mutters, lip curling in distaste at the forgotten pig’s foot.

Yuuri’s heart plummets. He knew he wasn’t improving much, but it hurts to hear his professor confirm that. It seems like nothing he does is enough for Doctor Berger, not his tests, not his practicals – not to mention the sneering comments he’s always making about needing to teach omegas.

“I’ll keep practicing,” Yuuri whispers, feeling defeated.

Doctor Berger wrinkles his nose, finally deigning to look at Yuuri. “Not now, you won’t. It’s entirely inappropriate for an omega to be here unsupervised.”

“I’ve seen other students here before,” Yuuri pleads, looking to his sutured pigs foot desperately. He _needs_ the help.

“That rule would be more for the safety of the equipment than the safety of the student,” Doctor Berger leers. “Now, clean this up. My assistant and I will be needing the room for a demonstration soon.”

Cheeks burning in humiliation, Yuuri cleans up the room, gathering up the pigs’ feet and the snipped off ends of the suturing wire. Doctor Berger converses with a man outside the room, a younger man with a thick brown mustache, who promptly begins setting something up in the corner of Yuuri’s vision.

“Ignore Doctor Berger. Your suturing work is impeccable,” the man says, startling Yuuri out of his humiliation.

He flushes head to toe and says, disbelieving, “You think so?”

The man nods. His eyes are clear and brown and very, very intense. He picks up one foot and runs his finger along the length of the stitches almost tenderly. “The stitches are tight so no blood will escape. They’re even, so the wound will heal and scar cleanly.” He inhales, deeply. “It’s not surprising, such work could only be done by the delicate hands of an omega.”

The strange compliment nags at the back of Yuuri’s mind. He smiles tiredly and says, “Thank you, ah-?”

“Hastings. James Hastings,” says James, bowing forward just slightly. He holds his hand out. “I work for the university hospital, with Doctor Berger here.”

“Yuuri Katsuki,” Yuuri says softly, placing his palm in James’ outstretched hand. James shakes it once, firmly, and Yuuri is suddenly struck at how professional that is. “That’s wonderful, James.”

“I also moonlight as a photographer,” James laughs, “I normally photograph cadavers, but I could make an exception for a live body as lovely as yourself.”

Yuuri flushes bright red. He covers his mouth with his fingers, looking to the side, not quite sure what to say to that.

“I’ve heard about you,” James notes. “About the company you keep.”

Yuuri winces. How has it reached so many people that he’s friends with Victor Nikiforov, and how do so many people know who Victor Nikiforov is? On second thought, Yuuri thinks he doesn’t want to know the answer to that.

“I’m sure you can tell I don’t approve of it,” James says, smiling wanly. “But I also have heard you’ve taken an interest in the Ripper case? I follow it rather avidly myself.”

Yuuri perks up. “Yes! Oh, it’s gruesome, but it’s so fascinating, isn’t it? I feel like following his footsteps is like putting the pieces together in a big puzzle.”

“A big puzzle,” James laughs, “I admire that.”

“I worry, though,” Yuuri admits, “I know… I understand why people don’t approve of what Victor does, but I don’t want him to be hurt. He just wants to be comfortable.”

James smiles. “Easier ways to be comfortable than prostitution, don’t you think?”

Yuuri shrugs awkwardly. It’s Victor’s choice, he doesn’t feel compelled to judge him. “I suppose,” he says, noncommittally.

“Well,” James says, grinning, “I’d be happy to chat with you about the case, at some point. Here’s hoping you figure it out soon, hm?”

Yuuri smiles, softly. “Sure. Pleasure to meet you, James.”

James takes his hand, and this time, does bring it to his lips. “Likewise,” he says.

_Two more murders must now be added to the black list of similar crimes of which the East-end of London has very lately been the scene. The circumstances of both of them bear a close resemblance to those of the former atrocities. The victim in both has been an omega. …_

_Both have unquestionably been murders deliberately planned, and carried out by the hand of someone who has been no novice to the work. … The body was that of a woman with a deep gash on the throat, running almost from ear to ear. She was quite dead, but the corpse was still warm, and in the opinion of the medical experts, who were promptly summoned to the place, the deed of blood must have been done not many minutes before. The probability seems to be that the murderer was interrupted…_

_In the case of the second victim, the purpose of the murderer had been fulfiled, and a mutilation inflicted upon the body. The face had been so slashed as to render it hard for the remains to be identified, and the abdomen had been ripped up, and a portion of the intestines had been dragged out and left lying about the neck._

All thoughts of Jack the Ripper flee Yuuri’s mind when he sees the sight outside of Victor’s apartment.

Victor’s hands are folded across his chest, his expression irritated, pouty – but he can’t quite mask the red rims of his eyes as Yakov lectures him, yet again, in the middle of the hallway. Makkachin whimpers at the scene, obviously distressed, nosing at Victor’s legs and strangely far from Yakov.

Yuuri glowers. Yakov could stand to be a little kinder – Victor swears it’s just tough love, but Yuuri doesn’t think love should be tough in any case. Yakov will take the opportunity to snap at Victor no matter the state Victor is in - that doesn’t seem like kindness.

And he never offers to help.

“Good afternoon, Victor,” Yuuri calls when Yakov pauses to catch his breath.

Both turn to him, Yakov’s face set in what seems to Yuuri to be a permanent scowl. It’s always jarring, seeing such vivid anger. At home, people keep their emotions carefully guarded.

Victor’s face brightens immediately. “Yuuri? You’re here early.”

“I’m not finished with you yet,” Yakov snaps. Yuuri feels angry, a slow simmer of dislike. He wonders if he could make his face scrunch up like Yakov’s.

“Yakov,” Victor cajoles, “You wouldn’t embarrass me in front of dear Yuuri, would you?”

“You’re embarrassing yourself,” Yakov shouts.

Yuuri stands in front of Victor, grabbing his arm gently but firmly, and says, “I’m afraid I have something very important to discuss with Victor.”

“But-”

“Always nice to see you, Yakov,” Yuuri cuts him off, trembling with his newfound boldness, and drags Victor as gently as he can back into the apartment. Yakov’s face purples in rage, but he doesn’t follow. When Makkachin tries to follow them into the apartment, Yakov grabs his leash and turns away with a huff.

Victor giggles and wraps Yuuri in a warm hug, kissing his temple.

“My hero,” he laughs. “Saving me from yet another inane lecture.”

“Ugh,” Yuuri huffs, “I wish he’d be a bit kinder to you. It can’t be pleasant to be yelled at constantly.”

“He means well,” Victor says, not sounding entirely honest, and Yuuri sighs. They’ve had this conversation before. “Now, what brings you here so much earlier than expected. Not that I’m upset, mind you. I always love to see you.”

It all comes flooding back.

“There was another one,” Yuuri blurts out, gripping the front of Victor’s nightgown wildly.

“Another – Yuuri, what are you on about?” Victor says, taken aback, and he takes Yuuri’s hands where they grip onto the worn fabric of his gown, dislodging them gently. His lips hover close to Yuuri’s hands, breath ghosting over his knuckles.

“I, bwuh,” Yuuri stammers, staring into Victor’s face, “I – ah, yes, Jack! Jack killed another one, two that is, and I was so worried, I nearly sprinted out from my Chemistry practical when I heard-”

“Jack?” Victor shakes his head, the sudden change in mood disorienting, “Killed another – what…?”

“Jack the Ripper,” Yuuri hisses, just as it clicks into place in Victor’s head, and he says, “Oh!”

They stare at each other for a long moment, Yuuri’s eyes wide.

“I’m fine, darling,” Victor soothes, still looking a little shocked, “Completely fine.”

“I know,” Yuuri says, sighing, shaking his head, “I know, they named the victim in the paper, I just… I couldn’t help but worry. It’s the one thing I’m really good at, worrying.”

“That’s not – oh, I’m so sorry,” Victor says, wrapping Yuuri in another hug. “Let’s get you calmed down. How about a cup of tea?”

Yuuri’s frantic heartbeat calms, steadily, at the familiar noise and sight of Victor putting the kettle on for tea. He’d been so distracted by his anger with Yakov that he’d forgotten how scared he was when he read the newspaper that morning and saw the headline.

“Ugh, I just,” Yuuri finally manages, “_Why? _I don’t understand it. Why would he do something like this? Jack, I mean.”

Victor shrugs, and for some reason his nonchalance just frustrates Yuuri even more.

“He hates us,” Victor says, simply.

“Hates,” Yuuri pauses, staring at the resigned expression on Victor’s face, the anger simmering there just below the surface. “Hates you?”

“Hates whores,” Victor elaborates, rolling his eyes when Yuuri winces, “Oh, Yuuri, it’s what I _am_. There’s no need to shrink away from it.”

“I’m just not used to being so blunt,” Yuuri mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck. His bun is very loose now, hanging limply at the nape of his neck, and he pulls it out in frustration. “Why would he hate you?”

Victor shrugs again, not meeting Yuuri’s gaze. “You’d be surprised by how many alphas make use of us even though, in practicality, they despise us.”

“Oh, Vitya,” Yuuri clasps his hands over his heart, tears welling up in his big brown eyes.

“No need for all that,” Victor laughs awkwardly, though it doesn’t meet his gaze. He takes Yuuri’s hands in his, leading him insistently to sit beside him as he butters a piece of bread.

“I just don’t understand why,” Yuuri murmurs, “Why them? Why these particular victims. Surely it’s not… Not that they were just unlucky.”

Victor ponders that for a long moment before speaking.

“I’ve known of plenty of whores who were killed by an alpha,” he begins, slowly, “_Crimes of passion, _they always call them. The alpha is some jealous lover, an angry father. Ever since they’ve introduced ambulances at local hospitals, I swear I see one down here every other day.”

Yuuri nods, slowly. Victors fingers are long, warm from the tea cup.

Victor continues, “How these bodies are treated, even after death – there’s anger, there. Rage. But I don’t think it’s rage at the individual, I really don’t. If it was, why would Jack go quiet for months before striking again? What could – what could an aging widow do to make him so angry? I think his victims may just have been unlucky.”

“Anyone could be next,” Yuuri whispers, trembling, “Even you. It’s not safe, Vitya-”

“You sound like Yakov,” Victor snorts, cutting him off. “You don’t need to worry about me, Yuuri, I’m not young and naive or old and desperate like his victims are. I won’t go with just anyone. Only rich, well educated alphas get access to me now.”

“The incisions, the disemboweling,” Yuuri stammers, “He has the skill of a surgeon...”

“Yuuri,” Victor says, raising his voice just a little, “_Enough_. You’re riling yourself up again, and there’s no need for it. And your tea’s gone completely cold. I’ll make you a new one – no, _sit_. Relax, please.”

Yuuri shakes his head, unable to stop his thoughts from racing, going to a million terrifying places, imagining worst case scenarios, each more gruesome than the last. It’s as though as soon as he calms down, he’s hit by another wave of terror out of nowhere.

“There’s so much I don’t understand,” he sighs, slumping against the table as Victor sets a second cup of tea in front of him. “How could… How could he have gotten past the police last night? They were everywhere, according to the newspaper.”

Victor laughs. “Perhaps he’s a police officer himself.” He brushes a strand of long black hair from Yuuri’s forehead. “Your hair looks lovely like this.”

“T-thank you – what… Jack the Ripper? Police?” Yuuri asks in disbelief, going very red at the compliment. “Surely you’re joking. Why on earth would there be a serial killer working for the people who are meant to defend us?”

Victor shrugs, looking a little embarrassed. “Perhaps you’re right. Well, no need to dwell on it, alright? I am perfectly safe, and I’m sure they’ll catch him soon enough. He can’t keep murdering prostitutes forever, can he?”

Yuuri shakes his head. “I hope not. I suppose… I suppose there’s no cause to worry for right now. I’m sure there are minds far smarter than mine looking into the case as we speak.”

Victor smiles, softly, and he brings Yuuri’s face into the crook of his neck, letting him inhale his sweet scent. Yuuri relaxes, finally, little by little as he breathes Victor in.

“You’re the smartest mind I know,” Victor says, and he kisses the top of Yuuri’s head. “But yes, the greatest police force in the whole world is working on the case right now. There’s no need to be afraid, alright, my darling Yuuri?”

There’s an edge to his voice when he says _greatest police force in the world_, but Yuuri doesn’t comment on that. He just lets Victor calm him, a balm to his ever-worried soul.

Victor continues, sighing softly, “Please don’t trouble yourself with this any further.”

The class quiets very quickly when Doctor Cialdini walks in, clapping Professor Berger on the back jovially. Despite his cheery attitude, and his relative youth, he’s one of the most distinguished medical practitioners in all of England – and just being in his presence is enough to make Yuuri quake with fear.

“Hello there, Stefan,” he grins, “Just wanted to pass on the good news – your residents _can_, in fact, count.”

Professor Berger blinks.

“The exams,” Doctor Cialdini continues, “That you made them all re-grade, distracting them from their rotations. The scores were correct from the start.”

“Even,” Professor Berger says, slowly, “the highest score?”

“Yes,” Doctor Cialdini says with a wink. “Congratulations to Yuuri Katsuki. Well, I’ll be off, now.”

A ripple of muttering sweeps through the assembled crowd as Doctor Cialdini leaves. Yuuri goes very red, sinking further into his seat, not sure if the glow of satisfaction outweighs the embarrassment of having all eyes on him.

“I don’t see what all the chatter is about,” Professor Berger snaps, “Now, as I was saying…”

“Wow,” breathes the student next to him, a pretty omega woman named Sara, “I’m not surprised, you know, you always seem to know what you’re doing. I, uh, hate to ask, but I didn’t do so well on the last exam, so I was hoping-”

“Sara,” hisses the alpha next to her, nearly frothing at the mouth with rage, “Don’t you dare talk to him. Not when he – when he’s been seen with those _unmentionable people_! What an awful influence! What a-”

Sara rolls her eyes, “Mickey, _please-”_

“Besides,” comes the low drawl of the other omega in the class, and Yuuri feels so _small_ under her haughty, green-eyed stare, “That exam was on omega anatomy. I’m sure you can imagine how he learned _that._”

Yuuri swallows. Sara turns away from him, looking chastised, and Yuuri buries his face in his lecture notes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, the newspaper clipping is from a real historical source! found [here](https://www.newspapers.com/clip/24865180/bodies_of_elizabeth_stride_and/). comment your thoughts, theories, etc!!!! >:3c


	3. Mary Kelly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gory chapter lads

“The latest body was found by her landlord, coming to collect late rent,” Yuuri mutters, writing the name _Mary Kelly_ in his notebook.

The wall is covered in photographs – possible suspects, victims, witnesses both credible and not.

Yuuri swallows, a shudder running down his head. He dictates as he writes notes in a thick notebook with lots of bits of paper sticking out. “The… The attack was different to the others. It was difficult to identify the body, due to the level of abuse postmortem. As with the other victims, the uterus was removed after death, and the body was ravaged with both blunt and sharp objects. At least… At least she was already dead, I suppose. This one was even more brutal than the others, though, in that Jack the Ripper mutilated her face beyond all recognition.”

There’s a photo with a close up of her hands, little bloody crescents underneath her long nails.

“Interestingly, there’s evidence of a struggle in the flesh under her nails. Police put a look out for anyone with evidence of scratches, but in the Whitechapel neighborhood, that’s not entirely rare. People get into fights at the bars all the time – even the attending surgeon had been injured when he attempted to remove a dead body from an opium den.”

Yuuri frowns and flips to a page in his notebook, running his finger down the well-worn page with splotchy ink stains and scratchy handwriting. Little tabs denote different theories, different bits of evidence. It helps with the fear, a little bit, to feel like he’s on top of the case. In reality, Yuuri does not believe at all that he’s close to solving who Jack the Ripper really is.

Sighing, Yuuri flips to a photo of a stern looking alpha with a thick beard and a monocle and scratches a big X across the page, slashing through possible motives and alibis. The ambassador to France is not Jack the Ripper, Yuuri concludes, because he’s been abroad for more than one of the murders.

“Why did I even think it could be the ambassador to France anyway?” Yuuri mutters, bitterly.

In truth James had put forth that theory, and Yuuri had been too polite to say no to it. They’d met up in the library to discuss the case, but Yuuri soon realized he might be better off just working on it on his own. James’ level of knowledge about the victims was shaky at best, and he kept making crude references to them being of the “unfortunate class.”

Yuuri lifts his glasses to rub at his eyes, yawning. It’s late at night in the cold of winter, and Yuuri wraps the shawl more tightly around his shoulders, shuddering at the draft whistling in through the cracks in the windowpane. His hair falls long around his face, a curtain of black, and a lamp with a flickering gas flame casts long, eerie shadows over Yuuri’s notes.

“Possible suspects,” Yuuri yawns, shaking his head. He thinks to Victor saying, _maybe it’s a cop_, and opens that page in his notebook, tapping at the photo pasted on his wall. He dips his pen in ink to scribble some new notes. “Number one: Chief of Police Nicolai Plisetsky. In his tenure as chief of police, he has implemented some of the strictest anti-prostitution measures in recent memory. He very clearly dislikes prostitution, and speaks extensively on how it shouldn’t be a part of any decent civilization. As chief of police, he would have been able to leave the active murder investigation on October thirteenth and commit the murder of Catherine Eddowes without anyone questioning his presence or movement.”

Yuuri frowns. “However, unlike many other anti-prostitution figureheads, according to Victor he has never been seen soliciting prostitutes downtown. He would have been very easily recognized. He also has started to demand that any arrested prostitute speak to a priest about making better choices, so he… doesn’t seem to want them dead, at least.”

Victor pops into Yuuri’s mind, an image of him rolling his eyes and huffing, _“I have met with so many priests, Yuuri! Nicolai must have had half the London clergy speak to me. I’m not even Christian. _He’s_ not even __C__hristian.” _

Yuuri smiles, despite himself, and continues on. “Second suspect is Sargent John Lafferty. Similar to Chief Plisetsky, very anti prostitution. Unlike Chief Plisetsky, he has followed his path with abject cruelty – taking whatever money a prostitute has on them at the time of arrest, advocating for inhumane prison sentences, attempting to get accused prostitutes evicted. He also _has_ been seen soliciting prostitutes, and even was officially reprimanded for beating a prostitute badly enough he needed medical attention.”

“However, he is known to have quite a sensitive disposition. He refuses to visit the morgue because the site of the bodies harms his delicate constitution. Additionally, the night of the last murder, his wife,” Yuuri stops to roll his eyes, “swears he was home with her. This has been corroborated by his neighbor.”

Yuuri mutters, “I suppose that’s another reason it’s likely not Chief Plisetsky. He personally oversaw Sargent Lafferty’s internal hearing.” A splotch of ink falls over the gruff police chief’s face as Yuuri hesitates with his pen over the page, wondering if he really can rule him out. In the end, he shakes his head and pulls back.

“It could be Yakov Feltsman,” Yuuri grumbles. “He’s quite rude to Victor. But he’s also Victor’s landlord, so if he intended to kill prostitutes he could have killed Victor years ago.”

He flips again in the notebook, to the _medical_ section. It wouldn’t be difficult for any of the most distinguished surgeons to go unnoticed in the East End. There’s a level of anonymity to the place, especially after dark. Victor has commented on the skill of a doctor’s hands in unlacing his corsets like he unlaces sutures from a body.

Yuuri flushes. There are so many suspects – while Yuuri likes to think he’s narrowing down his list of potential murderers, in reality anyone in all of London could be responsible for the murders. The incisions are clean and the removal of organs surgical, that’s true, so perhaps Jack the Ripper has medical knowledge, but he could just as likely be a former soldier, a veterinarian, or even a butcher.

He used to run his ideas by Victor, but talk of Jack makes Victor agitated, antsy. He doesn’t like thinking about him. To Victor, prostitution, despite its issues, has been his freedom – and now concern about Jack threatens to take that away from him.

“_What am I to do if I truly can’t work anymore?” Victor pleads. “I’m used to a certain lifestyle now, I can’t take those paltry omega wages in the sweatshops. So what am I to do? Get married? God, I’d sooner die than give my body to some rich alpha who won’t even pay me for it.”_

“_I could take care of you,” Yuuri offers, “Once I finish medical school. If I finish medical school.”_

“Maybe Jack is Doctor Berger,” Yuuri glowers, writing his name in the notebook just for pettiness’ sake. “Theory: Doctor Berger is Jack. Because I hate him.”

As he thinks about it, though, the idea seems completely ridiculous. Doctor Berger whines when his steak is too hard to cut. He whines when he has to help carry boxes longer distances than a few feet. He is entirely nonathletic, not capable of the gaping wounds the victims have. And besides, for most of the murders, Doctor Berger has been traveling across England giving medical demonstrations for rural students.

Once the ink dries, Yuuri slams the book shut, and tosses it away in frustration. He wishes he had someone to talk about this too, but for now he simply watches the gas lamp flicker in his cold dorm room.

Professor Cialdini is practically bouncing on his heels as he leads the class into their anatomy practical session. Yuuri has never seen him so excited, and a part of him is nervous because of that. Unlike Doctor Berger, Professori Cialdini is helpful and genial. That being said, he’s also one of the most difficult professors in the department.

“I have,” Professor Cialdini grins, “A treat for all you lovely students here today.”

James Hastings is already in the room, standing over a blanketed lump on the demonstration table. His camera stands on a tripod beside him, and he smells faintly of horses.

James shoots Professor Cialdini a dark look, and he mutters something under his breath as he steps away into the shadows. If Professor Cialdini can hear what he said, he doesn’t show it.

There’s a scratch mark down James’ face, and Yuuri catches his eye, pointing to it in concern. James waves him off cheerily, mouthing _work_ under his breath.

“Our collaboration with the police department means today I can show you something very special,” Cialdini continues, fingers twitching over the sheet. “But first, I’d like to make an announcement: our lesson today is on something a little different than wounds, and thus, the more fainthearted among us may wish to sit out the lecture. You will still be responsible for the content, however.”

Cialdini nods towards Yuuri, towards the other omegas in the room. Yuuri scowls. He’s sure, whatever this is, he can handle it perfectly well.

“You may have read the news about Jack the Ripper’s latest victim,” Cialdini grins, gripping the edges of the sheet.

The blood drains from Yuuri’s face, and before he can cover his eyes, yell that he was mistaken and needs to leave, the sheet is gone – ripped away to reveal the horror beneath.

Young Mary Kelly lies on the table, barely recognizable as a human being. It’s very different, Yuuri thinks woozily, to read about her gruesome death in the paper and to see the evidence of it before him.

He sees bone. Her leg has had the flesh stripped from the bone as though gnawed on by a dog, her torso has been cleaned of blood, but the slice from her abdomen up is visible, ragged and leathery at the end. Her face, oh – her face…

“We’re going to play a little bit of medical detective,” Cialdini says, a little more somber now, though his gray eyes still flash with excitement. “A little, mmm, Sherlock Holmes. Have you read those? Such delightful little stories.”

Yuuri thinks he might be sick. He can’t stop staring at her face, what should be her face. Mary Kelly was young, he remembers, unlike the other victims. Her friends and relations have described her attractive appearance, the red of her hair, which is now dry and limp and still bearing the rusty stain of dried blood. He can’t even begin to imagine what her face looked like, not three days previously.

“Describe to me, gentlemen,” Cialdini is saying, bare fingers dipping into the open cavity of her body, “The state of the viscera. And pay special attention to their removal. I’d like you to provide to me evidence if, in your opinion, this was the work of one of our profession.”

Yuuri sways on his feet. There are no viscera, there’s nothing but a hollow mess of muscle and bone.

His classmates have moved closer, tittering excitedly.

“Shame about those,” one of Yuuri’s classmates murmurs to his friend, nodding at the crusted, gaping bits of flesh where her breasts should be.

The anger, when it hits, makes Yuuri nauseous. His hands are shaking, he’s shaking all over.

He closes his eyes, and an image of Victor pops into his head.

_Victor, soft in the warm, early morning sunlight. He buttons up his bloomers, fingers moving deftly on the side of his slender hip, tucking his undershirt beneath the hem. His silver hair falls like a curtain of silk, his lips cherry red from being bitten in his agitation._

“_Do you want to talk about it?” Yuuri murmurs, lying on Victor’s soft bed not for the first time. His pillows still smell like him, his natural scent and the sweet perfume he wears, and Yuuri fears if he puts his glasses on to properly see Victor his heart might stop. “I heard you get up during the night.”_

_Victor dresses himself, slowly, in lieu of answering. His skirts tie behind him, a simple walking skirt, practical and a shimmering royal blue, and Yuuri stands to help him settle them in place. _

“_The man last night, that you protected me from, he reminded me of an old client,” Victor begins, very slowly. “I don’t… Name calling really doesn’t do much to hurt me anymore, but what he said, it reminded me… I had a client, once.”_

“Yes, I too would say that this removal of the viscera is more manic than perhaps previously thought. He seems to have a rudimentary knowledge of anatomy, given how precise he was with the other victims.” Ciadini is still in her open body cavity, and when he turns her body a certain way, the dried, exposed bone of her leg catches the light strangely.

Yuuri likes Professor Cialdini, but the way he’s handling her – he normally handles bodies gracefully, but without feeling. Here he does so again, his cadavers dolls he likes to move about like a child at play. It feels so different this time, Yuuri thinks, because there’s a difference between moving a limb to show the extent of a medical condition and moving a limb to revel in the spectacle of it all. Or maybe it was callous the whole time, and Yuuri had never noticed.

“_He was a doctor. Rich, charming. Young. I never harbored any illusions that he would whisk me away from my lifestyle, like some whores do, but I enjoyed our time together. He was kind to me, he would kiss my hand every time he offered to buy my services.” _

_Yuuri kisses the nape of Victor’s neck as he brushes his hair to the side. There’s sound and movement outside, and Yuuri takes the pins in his hand as he sweeps Victor’s hair up to expose the sharp line of his clavicle, his skin milky and smooth save for little purple lines where his veins show faintly. _

_Victor’s voice is very quiet when he continues. “He was the first person I thought of when I found out I was with child.”_

“I remember reading that she had a lover who wanted her to stop working the streets,” someone near Yuuri sighs. The tabloids are following this case, and Celestino is following the severed line where her uterus should be, and everyone is so interested, wondering who could do such an awful thing.

“If she’d listened, well...”

Yuuri’s mind fills in the ending. He inhales, sharply, thinks of how comfortable Victor’s life is, how he doesn’t need to rely on an alpha to take care of him, thinks of himself – how much scorn he’d gotten at home because of his desire to become a doctor.

Yuuri remembers the scorn he’s gotten here, the way his classmates look to him with disgust for so many reasons – his race, his secondary gender.

It’s been so, so hard here. He feels as naked as Mary Kelly on the table, knowing how his classmates think of people like him.

_Victor continues, staring down at his trembling fingers, “I suppose he thought I was there to ask him to take responsibility for the child. His kind disposition disappeared completely. I could barely begin to ask for… For what I wanted, before he began to abuse me so viciously, with words I’d never heard uttered so harshly. Alphas had called me all sorts of names, but this was so, so cruel.”_

_Yuuri stops, Victor’s hair half pinned, and wraps his arms around Victor’s shoulders to grasp the hands clasped in his lap. He hears when Victor swallows thickly, feels the pulse at his neck._

“_I finally, sobbing so hard my head throbbed and my eyes seemed swollen shut, told him what I needed. I begged him to perform the procedure. __He didn’t get kinder. He practically dragged me to his operating table, and I stripped naked, and when he looked at my body it was like he was an entirely different man with cold eyes and a snarl. His hands were clinical, cold, and when he finished I felt as though he’d hollowed me out __completely__. __He’d taken my heart out too. __I wasn’t crying, I didn’t feel anything except pain. I didn’t dare to come back, even as I lay writhing on my bed, not knowing if I’d last the night.”_

“_Victor,” Yuuri murmurs. There are tears in his eyes. They haven’t showed him how to do that, they wouldn’t dare, but he’s heard whispers that some doctors know how to. _

“_I know now what my mistake was,” Victor says. His eyes are dry, his voice steady, even as his hands sweat into Yuuri’s. “He’d only been kind to me to get what he wanted. When I went to him, when I reminded him that I existed outside of when it was convenient for him, he was furious. It was alright for him to buy me, but when I showed the consequences of the dozens of other men who had, I deserved cruelty. It’s like I wasn’t even a person to him. I’m not a person to any of them.” His breath catches, but his eyes remain dry. “I couldn’t have cared for a child, I really couldn’t have.”_

_Yuuri’s seen the children in the slums. Screaming babies at the breast of their weary mothers, children taken to the work house, parents sobbing because there’s nothing they can do, no way to provide better for them. An omega underneath a sheet, taken away from their new widow on a stretcher, the blood of childbirth drying on _ _their_ _ bed because _ _they_ _ couldn’t afford a midwife. _

“_I had no other choice,” Victor’s voice breaks. He inhales shakily, eyes still dry, like he’s too weary and too desperate to cry._

“_I know,” Yuuri murmurs, letting Victor sink back against him, “Hush, sweet Vitya, I know.”_

“Now, this is interesting,” Cialdini says, holding up the disemboweled liver, gesturing to an inflamed lesion of necrotic tissue on it. “What do we think this is?”

Yuuri blinks, and blurts out before he can stop himself, “Tertiary stage syphilis.”

He flushes immediately, covering his lips with his trembling fingers, but professor Cialdini beams at him proudly. Professor Cialdini is always beaming at him proudly – Yuuri half thinks he’s patronizing him. _I mean, it’s obvious,_ he thinks, _it must be obvious to everyone else._

“Exactly! Wonderful job, Miss Katsuki. These lesions are typical of the tertiary, or late, phase of a syphilitic infection. Can someone tell me what comes before that?”

Professor Cialdini looks to Yuuri expectantly. Yuuri can’t seem to make his brain catch up with his mouth, and he begins to sway back and forth.

Someone says, “Latent syphilis,” eagerly, just as Professor Cialdini frowns and says. “Are you alright, Miss Katsuki?”

Yuuri realizes Professor Cialdini is talking to him, and he tries to nod, but somehow his head refuses to move. His classmates turn to stare at him, and he shrinks into himself, terrified under their stares. To his own horror, his eyes fill with tears, and he inhales shakily, trying desperately to find his voice.

“Oh dear,” Professor Cialdini tut-tuts. He looks genuinely concerned, which just makes it worse. “Why don’t you step outside? Poor thing.”

Yuuri can’t even respond. He wants to say no, he’s fine, he wants to say _something_, but he runs out of the door, brushing past a concerned James, with tears dripping down his cheeks.

Outside, he lets out a shaky breath and sinks to the floor, burying his face in a handkerchief. He breathes in deeply, trying to calm his horror but unable to get the mutilated face of Mary Kelly out of his mind. All that was left were her eyes, glassy in death but still open, and Yuuri imagines the terror in them in the last moments of her life.

Inside, he hears Professor Cialdini say, “Sure, sure, James here will help you get photographs with the body. Let’s hope none of you wind up with him taking your mugshot after a night of drinking.”

Yuuri feels sick. He hears the long delay, the burst of flash from the camera a few times. He knows his fellow students occasionally take photos with the cadavers they dissect, but here it just seems cruel. Mary didn’t want this. Did any of the people who later became the bodies they use for practicals?

His classmates file out of the room, some sparing him an amused glance. A few, he notes, look a little bit green, but he still feels hot with shame for being the only one told to step outside for his own good.

Steeling himself for the body inside the room, Yuuri pushes through, trying hard to ignore the sight of her out of the corner of his eye.

“Ah, Professor,” Yuuri murmurs, gaze down.

“Miss Katsuki,” Professor Cialdini says. “You doing alright there? I got worried for a second. I’d hate to learn now that you were too soft for medical school.” He winks, but for some reason that doesn’t make Yuuri feel better. He always feels too weak, too wrong for at least this particular medical school. Looking at the body today made him feel so, so awful.

“Ah,” He continues, ignoring the question. “I just wanted to ask… Since I missed the ending of the lecture, about the notes?”

Professor Cialdini frowns. “You’ll have to ask your classmates, Miss Katsuki. You know it would be unfair if I gave you the notes.”

“It’s just,” Yuuri bites his lip, a sinking feeling in his stomach, “That I don’t really, I mean, the others don’t really talk to me? I’m not sure who would, I mean.”

Professor Cialdini snorts and appears to go to clap him on the back – then thinks better of it, brushing a stray strand of hair back into his long ponytail awkwardly. “Come now, your fellow students are there to help you study. If anything, they should be clamoring for your help. What good is it in being an unsociable omega, mm?”

Yuuri tries to hide his wince. In truth, despite his good grades, his classmates seem to think him utterly incapable of intelligent thought. It hurts, too, being called an unsociable omega. It reminds him of his family’s in, grouchy alpha patrons wondering why the little omega wouldn’t deign to talk to them. Snarling that his father ought to take a branch to his back to teach him proper respect for the superior gender.

Professor Cialdini isn’t going to give him the notes, though. That much is clear.

“Ah, I’m afraid I have an appointment,” Professor Cialdini gasps, checking his pocket watch. “Good luck, Miss Katsuki.”

Yuuri nods, smiling weakly, as Professor Cialdini rushes out the door, leaving him and the dead body of Mary Kelly alone in the room. He should leave, Yuuri knows, not look at the gruesome sight on the table any longer, and yet…

And yet.

Yuuri can’t get the flash of the camera out of his mind. He imagines his classmates getting the images developed, laughing as they pose holding up her legs, stripped violently down to the bone. Taking a deep breath, Yuuri turns to the body, to Mary Kelly, still lying on the table.

Some of the cadavers they get look peaceful, as though they’re simply sleeping. It breaks Yuuri’s heart to know that’ll never be the case here, that Mary will never look like she’s at peace, even in death. There’s a lump in his throat again, tears at the corners of his eyes. A strand of her lovely hair falls over the mutilated remains of her face, over those glassy, open eyes, and Yuuri inhales sharply as he reaches to brush it away-

Someone grabs Yuuri’s arm from behind him, fist closing around his wrist like iron.

Yuuri gasps and whirls around, finding himself staring up into James’ sharp brown eyes. His heart is pounding, the blood roaring in his ears, and he’s sure James feels his rabbit-quick pulse even beneath the thick wrist cuffs of his jacket.

“Careful, Miss Katsuki,” James breathes. “You heard what the professor said about syphilis.”

“That’s not how one contracts it,” Yuuri stammers. The buttons of his jacket dig into his tender wrist under James iron grip. “J-James, you’re hurting me.”

James is still for a very long moment, staring at him. Then, without a sound, he releases Yuuri’s wrist and turns back to Mary Kelly on the table.

“I have to take it back now,” James says.

Yuuri nods, lifting his skirts just enough that he can run from the room, ignoring his smarting wrist.

The door slams behind him, and Mary Kelly’s face lingers in the back of his mind.

Yuuri is in near hysterics when he finally arrives, panting and hyperventilating, at Victor’s door. The box he’d received, the letter, are clenched so tightly in his fists that they’re starting to rip.

He pounds on the door, pounds and pounds and calls Victor’s name, and when Victor finally opens the door Yuuri nearly smacks him in the face.

For a moment, Yuuri pauses, staring at Victor’s shocked face in front of him – and then he bursts into tears, sobbing as the throws his arms around Victor’s neck.

“Yuuri?” Victor stammers, “Yuuri, please, what’s wrong?”

“I thought,” Yuuri sobs, “I thought, I really thought… I got, in the mail, and I thought...”

“Darling,” Victor soothes, “You’re hyperventilating. I can feel your heartbeat so strongly.”

He presses his palm to Yuuri’s breast, over his frantically beating heart. Yuuri stares up at him, eyes full of tears, and grips Victor’s hand shakily. His breath comes out shallow, a stuttering, terrified gasp, and his eyes trace Victor’s sharp jawline, his pink lips and rosy cheeks, up to his very much alive and shining blue eyes.

“There we go,” Victor murmurs. His fingers are so close to Yuuri’s lips that Yuuri is sure he can feel his breath ghosting over them. “There we go. Please, come inside, let’s get you calmed down. How about some tea?”

Yuuri stoops to pick up the package and the letter, forgotten on the floor in his excitement of knowing Victor was alright. He remembers receiving them, wondering who would have sent him a gift other than his own family, and opening the box to see…

Victor puts a steaming cup of tea in front of him, sitting so close their knees touch beneath their skirts, his hand splayed on the small of Yuuri’s back. He’s dressed simply, today, and now that Yuuri is calmer he sees the faint stain of silver polish on the cuff of Victor’s sleeve.

“Talk to me,” Yuuri pleads, “Tell me what you’ve done today. That you’ve been completely fine.”

Victor smiles hesitantly, and Yuuri can still see worry in his eyes, but he begins kindly, “Well, I woke when the sun was high in the sky, just like normal. I think it was about nine o’ clock. I dressed myself in plain clothes, knowing that I had chores to do today. I ran to the market to pick up fresh butter for my toast, and I saw that they were selling apples for very little a pound, so I bought some of those, too. Then, I sat down and have spent the past little bit polishing my mama’s silver.”

Yuuri takes a nervous sip of his tea, nodding, and Victor gestures to two ornate silver candlesticks lying on a cloth at the far end of the table.

“When I moved here from Russia, these were some of the only things I took with me. When I was short on rent, I sometimes considered selling them, but I knew it would break mama’s heart. It would break my heart to part with the only physical thing from her I had left. So, I’ve been polishing them.” He pauses to lean in close and press a kiss to Yuuri’s temple. “You see? A completely normal, uneventful morning.”

Yuuri nods, shoulders shaking as another sob ripples through him, and he leans in to press his cheek to the bare skin at the crook of Victor’s neck.

“Now,” Victor says, running his fingers through Yuuri’s tightly tied back hair, “Tell me what’s upset you, please?”

Yuuri shudders, taking a deep gulp of his tea and nearly choking on it. He holds up the letter, the box, and hands the paper to Victor to read.

Victor takes it, frowning. He reads, “I send you the kidney of your whore Victor – oh, dear, that’s not how you spell my last name.” He continues. “It was a joy to rip him I cut his throat before he had time to squeal, next I shall send you his fingers and – oh, _Yuuri_.”

Victor tosses the letter to the side and wraps Yuuri in his warm embrace. He rocks him back and forth a few times, kissing Yuuri’s tear stained cheeks and rubbing his back while he whimpers.

“Is that…?” Victor asks, eyeing the box warily.

Yuuri nods, closing his eyes as more tears leak out. “I got it just today. I read it, I opened the box, and I knew I had to run to find you, before I even went to the police.”

“It can’t be real,” Victor breathes. “Why on earth would Jack the Ripper send something right to you? And look, here, this line is right from the letter published in the paper.”

“I know,” Yuuri says, miserably. “I know, it makes no sense for it to be him. I doubt Jack the Ripper knows at all who I am. But I saw that, and I saw the kidney, and I thought I’d lost you.”

Victor cups his cheeks, his lips so close to Yuuri’s that if Yuuri moved forward not more than an inch they would brush together. He wants to, somehow.

Victor murmurs, “You’ll never lose me. Alright, darling?”

“Whose kidney was it?” Yuuri stammers, suddenly. “Whose, I mean, it still could be dangerous. Shall we go to the police?”

Victor winces. “I, ah. I suppose. I admit I’m not on very good terms with them, but...” He stares back down at Yuuri, brushing a sweaty strand of hair from his forehead. “Well, nothing of that. But Yuuri… Do you think this may just be a prank?”

Yuuri’s eyes widen. Yes, in truth, he’d thought so immediately. Jack the Ripper certainly wouldn’t know who he is. And yet, there was something in his heart that prevented him from recognizing that.

“Such a cruel prank,” Yuuri murmurs. “To pretend that you, my dearest friend, have been killed. But, the kidney, how…?”

Victor speaks very slowly, very carefully, as though he’s stepping over glass. He says, “Darling, do you not go to an academy with ample supply of cadavers with kidneys ripe for the taking?”

Yuuri’s heart skips a beat. That, somehow, is the last crack in his plausible deniability. It’s easier, somehow, to think that Jack the Ripper himself, the man he’s dedicated so much energy into ferreting out, is threatening him. This just _hurts_.

“Why,” he whispers, “Why would they do that to me?”

His heart aches. It beats, dull and throbbing, like a leaden clock inside of him. Tears well up in his eyes again and he rests his head against Victor’s breast, crying into his own hands as Victor rubs his back soothingly.

“I’m sorry,” Victor says softly, “I’m so sorry. I suppose it’s my fault, isn’t it?”

Yuuri doesn’t, can’t answer. He’s so deeply hurt that one of his classmates did this, and it’s not Victor’s fault, it’s _not_. He can’t deny how worried he is, though, worried every time Victor goes out to work. Mary Kelly still haunts him, and some nights he dreams of a mutilated body with long silver hair and beautiful blue eyes fixed forever in their last moments of abject terror.

Victor holds him close, lets him cry, and cry, and cry. Everything has hurt so much since he’s arrived here. It was so much easier at home, where his mama and papa supported him even when his town didn’t. Victor supports him, but the terror Yuuri feels constantly – he wishes the specter of Jack would just go away, disappear into the shadows of the East End.

“I’m really, really scared for you,” Yuuri manages.

Victor kisses his forehead. “It’s everything, I think. Your stress from your classes, from your classmates, is making everything seem scarier than it is. The semester will be over soon enough, though. In just another month it’ll be Christmas, and we can go to the markets together.”

“But what if Jack is still there?” Yuuri pleads. “What if… Whenever you go out, I-”

“Yuuri,” Victor cuts him off, voice firm.

They’ve had this conversation before, where Yuuri panics about Jack and Victor assures him there’s nothing to be afraid of.

_Don’t you have enough money saved up to wait for a while until they’ve caught him?_

_Money is never that secure, not for me. I could live for much less in a slum, with screaming babies and whole families, but I want to be comfortable, away from what I had in the past. The thought of marrying an alpha is abhorrent to me, and the only alphas who would marry me are the ones who would want the same services I provide but for free._

_You don’t need to marry an alpha. There must be something you can do in the meantime._

_I like my work. I like knowing how I can be pleased. I don’t think… I don’t think I’ll ever stop being terrified of being forced back to how it was, when I first moved here. I was starving, I was so tired, and I need, I _need_ to know there’s a way out of that. This is my way out. _

_Please, Victor. _

_Yuuri._

“How about this,” Victor sighs. He extricates himself from Yuuri’s arms and picks up the silver candlesticks, freshly polished, from the end of the table. “How about you help me clean, alright? And then we can,” he winces, “We can go to the police.”

“I don’t want to go to the police,” Yuuri murmurs, “If they’ll be unkind to you.”

Victor smiles softly, putting the glinting silver clearly in the windowpane. He plucks out two candles from a drawer in the kitchen, and he lights them in the beautiful carved candle holders.

“I’m perfectly safe,” Victor says, rushing back to wrap Yuuri in his arms once more. “Whoever did this was awful, and mean. I’m sorry they’ve been so unkind to you there.”

Yuuri calms, and as he does, he realizes how chilly it is.

“It’s freezing in here,” Yuuri gasps.

Victor starts. “Ah,” he says, sheepishly, “I didn’t notice. Let me put on – I don’t like fire, is all.”

He sets wood in the stove, nervousness making his body rigid. Yuuri steps up behind him, taking the wood from his hands, and says, “Let me?”

Victor nods, gratefully, wrapping around Yuuri as he lights the stove and warmth floods through the apartment.

It’s bright outside still, but somehow the flickering candlelight soothes Yuuri just a little, as does Victor’s scent, his warmth all around him. It’s cold outside, near the end of November, but with the fire on it’s so cozy in the little apartment.

Victor is safe. He’s perfectly safe.

But with classmates who are willing to hurt Yuuri like this, is he?

“Forgive my lateness,” James smiles gently. “I was trusted with driving the ambulance today, and there was congestion up by Clapham Commons.”

“It’s alright,” Yuuri says softly, “I was just...”

Everything is weighing on him, and he waves his hand helplessly over his notebook. There are a few more cross outs in his notebook, but not nearly enough considering how all of the city of London is a possible suspect.

James frowns. “Are you alright, Miss Katsuki?”

“I’m fine,” Yuuri lies. He’s still shaken from last week. Going into class today was torture, seeing everyone there and wondering who sent the kidney to him. It was a lab period with Doctor Berger, too, and his sneering, snarling presence made Yuuri feel small and scared.

They did eventually go to the police, him and Victor. Possible prank or not, it’s never a good sign when human viscera show up at one’s home – and so they’d boredly opened up a case for it. The officer who took Yuuri’s statement spent most of his time leering at Victor in between what Yuuri was saying.

It’s been a while, now, and no one has gotten in touch with him with progress on the case. It’s like they just… forgot about it, like it never mattered to them in the first place.

James is quiet for a moment, contemplating him. Yuuri has never noticed, but he smells like briar rose with a hint of something sharp, like a liqueur. It’s sweet for an alpha scent, but then James is quieter than most alphas he’s met.

“Would you like me to look over your recitation notes?” James offers. “You discussed appendectomy today, correct?”

“Correct,” Yuuri says, distracted. James has been helping him with the material, interspersed with discussing topical crimes, including but not limited to the Ripper case. Yuuri isn’t really in the mood for either, though – he’ll be visiting Victor later tonight, and they’ll go out and drink and for a short moment Yuuri will forget how miserable he is.

They talk through things for a while, Yuuri stumbling through the basics. James tuts each time, the sound making Yuuri feel even worse, an ugly mixture of anger and embarrassment.

“You know, James,” Yuuri says, cutting him off mid-sentence, “I think I ought to go. I’m meeting a friend later, and I don’t want to be late.”

James frowns. “Victor?”

Yuuri flinches. He nods, not looking James in the eye.

“Yuuri,” James says carefully, “You know he is of the unfortunate class. He isn’t… You do not engage in that kind of thing, right?”

“No!” Yuuri gasps, standing up in horror. “No! James, goodness. We just spend time together. He doesn’t go out when I’m there.”

“Would you say you see him every Friday?” James asks, lightly.

Yuuri huffs. “I’ve had quite enough moralizing on my friendship with Victor, thank you. He’s good, and kind, and-”

“He’s a _whore,_” James roars, slamming his fists on the table.

Yuuri stumbles back in shock, squeaking. His heart pounds at James’ outburst, so sudden, so strange.

“James?” Yuuri stammers. He grips his jacket over his chest, his heart still beating frantically.

James stares into the distance, breathing hard. He shakes his head and stares up at Yuuri, his eyes the same cool brown as before.

“I worry about you, you know,” James murmurs, as though the anger was never there. “I don’t want him affecting your honor. I’m not a religious man, but it’s hard to think what might to happen to him after he’s gone.”

“We don’t have that in Japan,” Yuuri laughs nervously, trying to ease the tension. He’s never heard James speak on religion before, and this is frightening and new. “Hell, I mean. Victor doesn’t either.”

“Yuuri,” James says, gripping his hand suddenly. His grip is tight, his nails digging into Yuuri’s skin. “Would you accompany me to the theater tonight? Perhaps we can go for drinks afterwards.”

“I already said,” Yuuri says, gently, “I’ve promised my evening to Victor.”

James’ grip tightens. “Instead of seeing Victor. Would you see me instead?”

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri blinks, tugging slightly on James’ hands. “I’m sorry, but I’ve promised...”

James doesn’t let go. He stares up at Yuuri intensely, and Yuuri is reminded of the anatomy room, the iron shackle grip holding Yuuri to him.

“James,” Yuuri says again, “I’d like you to let go now. Please.”

“Why him?” James hisses, staring Yuuri in the eye, “Why is it always him?”

“He’s my friend,” Yuuri snaps, impatient, “James, you may not approve of him, but it’s not fair for you to keep me here-”

“How can you keep _associating _with,” James shakes his head. “With that.”

Yuuri wrenches his hand out of James’ grip. He snarls, “He’s a person, James, no matter what you think of him.”

He stalks off, having had enough of this for the day – but not quickly enough that he doesn’t hear James mutter _hardly_ under his breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lsjkdfslkg so uh before u @ me......
> 
> syphilis doesnt progress to the tertiary stage until you've had it for decades. mary kelly happened to be the only of the canonical five who was a young woman, in her 20s. i don't think it can be passed to a baby from the mother? idk im not a doctor. it's a medical inaccuracy but i wrote it like this for the DRAMA ok 
> 
> victorian med students taking photographs with cadavers is totally something that happened irl though. seriously, i have a whole book of them. victorians were fucked up


	4. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> btw this chapter deals explicitly with heats - not really in a sexual way (you'll see what i mean) but still, there are parts where any youths reading this might wanna close your eyes lmao
> 
> this chapter also begins a series of very mean (>:3c) cliffhanger endings so *ducks to avoid ur thrown tomatoes*

“What do you mean,” Yuuri breathes, “It’s impossible to give me an extension?”

“I mean, we simply can’t allow you to have an extension for your heat,” the secretary says, barely even looking at him. “There’s no protocol in our student manual for this, and it wouldn’t be fair to the other students if we allowed you to take your exams late because of your unfortunate biology.”

“But I did see in the student handbook,” Yuuri says through gritted teeth, “That you will allow a medical exception if a student goes into rut during their exams. Surely the same set of rules could apply here?”

“Ruts are simpler, though,” the administrator says, “There’s an established procedure for when the work must be made up, and we know that ruts don’t alter the mind the same way heats do. It simply wouldn’t be possible for you to return to your exams post-heat.”

“If there’s no established procedure,” Yuuri says, very slowly. “Perhaps it would behoove the administration to create one?”

“All due respect,” the secretary snaps, “This has been one of the most prestigious medical colleges in the country for centuries. It is not your place to imply how it ought to be run.”

“So what am I to do?” Yuuri pleads “I cannot fail my exams. I cannot reschedule my heat. There must be something?”

“I’m afraid not,” the secretary says, sounding entirely unapologetic. “I’m afraid we can’t change the rules because of one little omega. It’s our kindness that allows you to be here, and you’d do well to remember that.”

Yuuri is so, so hot. He burns beneath his layers of skirts, even in the cold December air, his skin flushed and feverish. He has to take his exams, he _has to_. He worked so, so hard to get here – braved the wide open ocean to come here from Japan, suffered through ridicule at home and ridicule here. If he fails now, it would destroy him.

The exam room is stuffy with bodies. It sends a strange thrill of sensations through Yuuri. He’s terrified, _terrified_ that he’ll be found out. He imagines the worst, his classmates finding out that he’s in heat, ripping him from his desk.

He just wants to pass, he just wants to do well.

Yuuri stifles a sob, staring around the room. Everyone seems just as stressed as him – no one looks in his direction, but he’s so fucking scared. What would he do if someone cornered him after his exam? Would he be able to stop them, his body weakened, his mind unable to catch up to his movements?

Even doused in perfume as he is, Yuuri knows his own scent is leaking out. There’s a sour undertone of distress throughout the room, but Yuuri is sure his is more potent, more pungent because of his heat.

He’s scared, he’s _angry_. Angry that they’re forcing him through this. He asked, he pleaded for them to give him an extension, but they laughed in his face and now he has to take his exams _while in heat_ or risk failing.

Of course, that’s the point, isn’t it? Yuuri thinks bitterly. The never wanted him to succeed. This is just another attempt to force him to admit defeat. They’re trying to shut him out, just like they did by denying him practice, just like they did by sending him that fucking kidney over his friendship with Victor.

The exam paper swims in front of his watery eyes. He’s so _hot_. It burns between his legs, sweat and dampness making him feel sticky, gross as his thighs rub together beneath his skirts.

He _burns_. His body throbs in a desperate, animal way, and he shifts in his seat to try to ignore the awful itch of desperation. He thinks for a moment of the alpha next to him, thinks of rucking up his skirts to expose his naked lower half, the friction of bloomers too terribly much in his current state.

_No_. Yuuri swallows another sob, tears dripping onto the paper and smudging the ink of his answers. He wipes his eyes furiously and tries to write again, his hands shaking so terribly he’s worried his words are entirely illegible. The chemical reaction to synthesize a pigment wavers before his eyes. He knows this, he _knows this_.

No one looks at him. His mother disabused him early on of the notion that omega heat scent is toxicly enticing, that an alpha smelling it would entirely lose control of their higher brain functions. It’s just an excuse they use to keep omegas in line, she said.

They must have thought he believed the myth, so he’d refuse to take his exams, so he’d fail the semester. They don’t want him here, no one wants him here.

Yuuri’s heart is pounding so fast he thinks he might pass out. Acute myocardial infarction. He presses his fist into the damp spot between his legs, wishing he could curl his fingers inside himself and stop this awful, feverish heat.

The clock slowly ticks away, the ticking in time with the frantic beating of his heart and the throbbing between his legs. He can barely focus on the words on the exam paper, thinking only of the friction of his shirt against his sensitive breast.

He can barely breathe. In all his time in Japan, he’s never faced anything as degrading as this. They hate him, they really fucking hate him, and it hurts so, so much.

Tears dripping down his cheeks, body aching, he continues writing his exam. He knows what happens to omegas who don’t take time for their heats – suppressing your needs can lead to headache, nausea, vomiting, even worse things if suppressed too long. Heart attack, heat stroke, infertility.

In ancient Japan, omega death rates were unimaginably high from young omegas being forced to ignore their heats, keep obedient and quiet, before the upheaval of the Sengoku period. This is torture, it’s _torture_-

And Yuuri still has three exams to go.

“Yuuri – Yuuri, oh my god, are you alright?”

Yuuri sobs pitifully, sinking to his knees in front of Victor. His dorm room isn’t safe, it’s where they sent the kidney, it’s where his classmates can find him. He doesn’t want to be near any of them, not right now, not like this.

He can barely speak, struggling to stand, and Victor helps him up, dragging him to sit at the rickety kitchen chairs while he moans in agony.

“You’re burning up,” Victor murmurs, resting his cool palm on Yuuri’s forehead, “Do you have a fever? What’s wrong, why aren’t you in the hospital-?”

Victor catches a hint of his scent, then, the sensual top notes that haven’t been there before, and his pupils go wide and black. He inhales deeply, some of the tension in his shoulders melting away.

“Yuuri,” he breathes, “Oh my god, are you in heat?”

Yuuri sobs again, nodding miserably.

“Oh, oh god,” Victor stammers, “Oh you must – you can’t be dressed like that, let’s get you to a bed – Yuuri, what happened? Why aren’t you safe in the dormitories, it’s all omegas, isn’t it? Did someone…?”

“Had to take my exams,” Yuuri sobs, each word choking him, stuck in the incredible heat in his throat. He barely registers Victor leading him to the bedroom, half draped over his strong shoulders. “Wouldn’t – wouldn’t let me take them later. Hurts so much, had to take them.”

“Yuuri,” Victor breathes, horror dawning on his pretty face, “Have you not been – not been fulfilling your urges? You must know that’s unhealthy, how long has it been?”

“Couldn’t fail,” Yuuri wails, writhing from the additional heat of Victors warm body. Victor deposits him on the soft bed and Yuuri spreads out, sniffling, needing soft and warm, clawing at his too-tight too-hot clothes. “Can’t fail, they’re counting on me, it hurts so badly-”

“I know,” Victor soothes, “I know, we’ll get you settled – come back here, let’s get-”

Yuuri vomits over the side of the bed, missing the chamber pot by a few feet, and Victor gasps.

“You’re sick,” Victor pleads, “Oh god, you’re really sick. Come here, come here.”

He flips Yuuri around Yuuri sobbing into his hands, whimpering, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, my head hurts so terribly.”

“I know,” Victor soothes, “I know. Here.”

He pulls off Yuuri’s outer layers, Yuuri lying like a limp doll, and unlaces his corset with none of the sensuality he had before. His fingers work quickly, each brush of them sending red-hot flames across Yuuri’s skin.

Yuuri moans, half in pain and half because god does Victor smell delicious, even with the slight tinge of concern he’s trying hard to mask. Cool air hits the soles of his feet, his calves as Victor peels off his sweaty stockings.

“Hips up, love,” Victor says.

Yuuri whimpers, jerking pitifully to try to comply. He arches his back just enough that Victor can pull up his chemise, the cool air such a relief against his sweaty skin that he forgets to be humiliated that he’s naked on Victor’s bed, surrounded by Victor’s sheets and pillows and scent.

There are huge sweat stains all down the back and under the arms of his undershirt. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Victor folding his clothes into a pile in a corner of the room, and he squeezes his damp thighs together with a low sob, turning onto his side.

It’s such a relief, such a relief to be naked after suffering and sweating for so many days. The bed is so soft, smelling like Victor, and Yuuri begins feverishly arranging the pillows in a more comfortable position, surrounding himself with comfort.

“There we go,” Victor says, soft and gentle. “Make yourself a nice little nest. You’re safe here. You can stay as long as you like.”

He moves to the side of the bed, putting a comforting hand on Yuuri’s bare shoulder. It burns like a firebrand, and Yuuri flinches away with a low sob. He grips between his legs desperately, fingers curling into the hair there, and sobs, “Please, I n-need.”

“It’s alright,” Victor misunderstands, “You’re safe here, do what you need.”

“I can’t,” Yuuri sobs, “I need, alone. Please. D-don’t look at me.”

Victor is silent for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is so, so sad. “I need to clean the vomit, would it be okay if you faced away from me? I’m afraid it’ll stain.”

Even in his whirling heat sickness, Yuuri catches that he needs to keep the room clean, since this is where he works.

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” Victor offers, hesitantly.

Yuuri knows, whether Victor is referring to his own heats or the very rare omega client. He knows, he _knows_, but these past few days he’s felt like everyone was looking at him, like everyone could smell him and feel the heat on him.

He’s so, so angry. So humiliated. Why can’t Victor just do this one thing for him-

The hot flash of fury fades as quickly as it came. He’s safe, he’s in Victor’s home, with Victor’s warm hands and body. Yuuri grips one of the soft pillows, bringing it to his face, and begins to weep into it. He cries into the down, unable to answer. His fingers curl up into him, and it’s such sweet relief that he begins to sob even harder.

“Oh, Yuuri,” Victor says, sounding on the verge of tears himself.

Yuuri barely hears him leave the room, shutting the door behind him. He fingers himself furiously, still crying into the pillow, and even as the first orgasm washes over him he thinks he’s never spent a more miserable heat in his life.

Time passes. The oppressive heat recedes just a bit, just enough that Yuuri can gasp for breath and take in the cool air in the room and feel soothed by it. His hands are so sticky from being inside himself, a slight twinge of soreness beginning to bloom between his legs like a bruise.

His heat is waning, finally. Finally.

He was sick a few more times, though he managed to make it into the chamber pot, and more than once when he was about to come the heat was so intense his vision began to swim and darken.

Yuuri pants into the pillows, still gripping one of them to his chest and face. His mind is a little clearer, his eyes throbbing and swollen nearly shut from crying.

His head throbs, too.

Fuck.

Yuuri tries to move, but he's so, so tired, and for the first time in days he's able to comfortably settle into sleep.

There's a gentle clatter somewhere in the room, pulling Yuuri awake again.

There's a soft voice humming something, a soothing melody that brings tears to Yuuri's eyes.

He shifts a little groaning at the oppressive dryness in his mouth, the pounding in his head. His body still burns, though not as hotly as before, and his hand goes to clench his sticky thighs unconsciously.

Victor's gaze flits up to him, and he smiles softly.

Yuuri whimpers as his hand flies to his face, the world around him blurry. Instantly, Victor is there, placing the cool wire frames over his eyes.

He takes a dirty cloth and puts it on a tray, and the sharp scent of lye reaches Yuuri's hypersensitive nose. Right, Victor was cleaning. Cleaning up Yuuri's mess.

"How are you feeling?" Victor asks, gently.

Yuuri's eyes fill with tears again, and he chokes when he tries to answer.

"It's alright," Victor rushes to reassure him, "It's alright. I've brought some things to help you. Can you sit up?"

Yuuri whimpers and nods, struggling into a seated position. Victor's scent is so strong with him so close, cradling him like a warm cocoon. He feels as though he can barely speak, his throat tight with humiliation and heat sickness.

Victor presses a cold cup to his lips, and Yuuri takes a sip, tentatively.

Water.

Yuuri grabs Victor's hands with such intensity that his nails dig into Victor's skin, but Victor doesn't pull back. He takes deep gulps, water dripping down his sweaty chin, whimpering pitifully when the glass is empty.

Victor refills the cup, then refills it again and again as Yuuri drinks with animal ferocity, sloshing it down his face and down his naked chest.

"That's enough," Victor says, taking the cup away, "That's enough. You'll make yourself sick."

Yuuri lets out a sad little whine, but stops when he feels the cool drip of water down his face. Victor dabs at it with a damp cloth, wiping the sweat from his brow, and Yuuri closes his eyes at the sweet relief.

Victor places a damp cloth against his forehead, then another around his neck. He's so close that Yuuri can feel his breath against his face, and he feels himself growing wet again. He wants Victor in this little nest with him, wants Victor's naked body sliding against his.

"Let's tidy up that hair, hm? On your side, please."

Victor's voice sends a bolt of electricity between his legs. He whimpers, shifting onto his side, while Victor's fingers rub gentle circles into his scalp. There’s a slight tug as Victor pulls the strands apart and loosens the knots, but it's nothing compared to Victor's fingers working deftly to braid his long black hair, to Victor's breath on the nape of his neck.

Yuuri's hands squeeze between his legs again.

"I c-can't," Yuuri stammers, "Can't stop, need to keep going."

"Do what you need," Victor breathes, voice strained. "Don't worry about me."

Yuuri nods, not even caring what Victor sees. It's too much, too much to have Victor there. Yuuri bites his lip and dips his fingers back into his warm, wet heat, savoring the shudder or relief that rushes through him.

Victor braids his hair while Yuuri fingers himself, and when Victor finishes braiding, he presses a soft kiss to the back of Yuuri's neck.

Yuuri comes almost instantly – then throws up again, this time all over the bedsheets.

"Victor," Yuuri rasps, "May I have a bath?"

Victor looks up from the book he's reading, surprised, but he leaps up immediately. Yuuri doesn’t miss how his eyes rake up and down his still naked frame, and shame colors his cheeks. He feels so, so sticky. Sticky and sweaty and gross, and the feeling between his legs makes him want to vomit.

They did this to him. He was forced to sit exams he still, in all likelihood, failed, made himself so sick he's not sure how he'll recover, they humiliated him in front of his entire class.

The same class that send him a fucking kidney because of his friendship with Victor.

The kettle boils, a loud, sharp whistle that pulls Yuuri out of his thoughts. He follows Victor dully to the little bathroom and watches the water run into the tub while Victor lights the gas beneath it with a match.

"It’ll be very hot," Victor says gently, switching off the gas as steam rises from the tub. Yuuri can’t look at him. He can only look at his bare toes against the dark floor.

The water is scalding when he steps into it, but Yuuri can’t bring himself to care. He sinks down into it, ignoring the pain, and buries his face in his knees.

Victor returns in a few moments with a towel and some soap. He rests his hand on Yuuri’s shoulder with a sad little sigh, but Yuuri won’t, can’t respond from the humiliation clogging his throat.

It's nothing like the onsen at home. Yuuri tries as hard as he can to clean himself, but it's nothing like relaxing in a hot spring at the end of a long day around cadavers and sick bodies. Yuuri thinks the smell of formaldehyde will never leave him.

He feels awful.

"We could," Victor murmurs, his breath hot against Yuuri's ear, his hand soft on Yuuri's back, "Go out for a drink, a bite to eat once you've bathed?"

Even with Victor there, Yuuri thinks that nothing he faced in Japan was half as awful as the abuse he's gone through here.

Yuuri's voice cracks, and he says, "I just want to go home."

The office door is locked. Yuuri tries to swallow down his tears, banging on it yet again as though it’ll change the sign on front – away for the holidays, will return next semester.

“Fuck,” he swears, swallowing. “_Fuck._”

The heat sickness still lingers, fogging up his brain, making him feel woozy and out of it. Every step is like wading through shallow water, disorienting and difficult.

“Miss Katsuki? What are you doing here?”

Yuuri whirls around to see Doctor Berger scowling down at him. Perhaps he isn’t scowling at him, perhaps that’s just the natural expression of his face, but Yuuri can’t help but feel gutted by the way his lip curls in disdain – he’s harsh on everyone, but Yuuri internalizes it all, and that awful voice in the back of his head is always there to tell him that Doctor Berger is right.

“I wish to speak to the administrative office,” Yuuri whispers.

“Can you not read?” Doctor Berger sneers, “Perhaps you need my help. It says-”

“I know what it says,” Yuuri snaps, unable to quell the surge of anger. It all comes out in a rush, before Yuuri can stop himself. “I wish to speak to the administrative office because of this institution’s incredible negligence. I know that alphas are allowed to take their exams at a later date should they go into rut, but I was given no such consideration when I asked for an allowance for my heat. The office’s reasoning was utter nonsense, completely ignorant of the medical realities of ruts and heats, which I as a medical student could instantly recognize as an attempt to prevent omegas from succeeding at this institution. It was discrimination, pure and simple, and because of it I have been suffering the ill effects of a delayed heat, and-”

“Stop,” Doctor Berger says, coolly. His face is unreadable, and Yuuri pants as the words leave him in a rush. He had spoken with such intensity that it had drawn the breath from his lungs, and now Yuuri struggles to right himself. “Miss Katsuki, lets discuss this in my office.”

Yuuri feels a small pang of hope, just for a moment. He follows Doctor Berger tentatively, not quite sure what to expect, anxiety clawing at his lungs. He’s worried, nervous. Is Doctor Berger going to listen to him…?

“Sit,” Doctor Berger instructs.

Yuuri does. He opens his mouth to speak-

And Doctor Berger cuts him off, “You have no right to seek help on this matter. You spoke to the administration, and they gave you their answer. Who are you to defy them?”

Yuuri flushes hot with anger. “But when alphas-”

“We’re not talking about alphas,” Doctor Berger snaps, standing so he towers over Yuuri. He raises his voice, loud enough that it sends a thrill of fear through Yuuri’s bones. “We’re talking about one irritating, uppity omega who has not learned to accept his own limitations. You made your choice to take the exams while in heat, and now you have no right to complain about it. You didn’t have to take them, did you?”

Yuuri stammers, “If I didn’t, I would have failed! That’s not fair-”

“And yet,” Doctor Berger roars, “No other omega has come to me with such complaints. Only you, Yuuri Katsuki. You seem to be laboring under the delusion that if you cannot finish a task, it must be the administration who is out to get you, not your own stupidity.”

“I’m not-” Yuuri squeaks.

“If this is how omegas are going to behave, I think we ought not to allow them the privilege of learning at our esteemed institution. The Royal College of Medicine has been training the finest students in the world for centuries, and you think you somehow ought to be given special treatment?”

“It’s not,” Yuuri begins, eyes filling with tears, “It’s not-”

“You think you deserve more than-”

“_It’s not special treatment_,” Yuuri bursts out, “I couldn’t stay home-”

“Then _you’ve made your choice_,” Doctor Berger roars. “You’re dissatisfied because the world does not revolve around you. You are pompous and whiny in complete contrast to your performance here. I have no choice but to conclude that it’s your own personal failures that make you unfit for medical school.”

Tears stream down Yuuri’s cheeks. Of course Doctor Berger had no intention of listening to him – his brief swell of hope was so unbelievably _stupid_. The unfairness of it all sits like bile in Yuuri’s stomach, nauseating, all-consuming.

“I know where your miserable attitude comes from,” says Doctor Berger suddenly.

“I’d like to leave,” Yuuri whispers, standing-

And Doctor Berger blocks his path.

“You refuse to fit in among your fellow students,” Doctor Berger bears down on Yuuri, barely a few inches taller but so much more intimidating in stature, “Because you spend your time cavorting about with _whores_. I don’t know what it’s like in your country, but here in civilized places we don’t take too kindly to them.”

“Victor helped me,” Yuuri stammers, voice barely above a whisper. “I’d like to leave, please-”

“Victor Nikiforov is a _prostitute_,” Doctor Berger spits, “And thanks to him, I have your sniveling face here talking about _unfair_. You couldn’t just learn your place, could you? You couldn’t just be a proper student. You know how he’ll end up?”

“I,” Yuuri stammers, “I, please-”

“Dead,” Doctor Berger roars, grabbing Yuuri’s wrist so hard it hurts, “Dead in a ditch somewhere, and what will you have then? Will you care for him when his body rots from syphilis? When the hordes of alphas he’s serviced beat him to death? If you continue to associate with people like _him_, you have no place here.”

Yuuri quakes down through the worn out soles of his shoes.

“Maybe he filled your head with ideas about omegas in London society, but he’s nothing but a foreign bitch too lazy to find proper work. Perhaps if he cries, weak-minded alphas will give him what he wants, but that’s not the kind of alpha I am.”

“It’s not about me, then,” Yuuri manages, voice quavering, “It’s about omegas. All omegas. You don’t believe they’re worthy of being taught here, you want them to fail.”

“Yes,” Doctor Berger says, “I do.”

That hits him like a slap in the face.

Yuuri swallows. He somehow hadn’t expected Doctor Berger to admit it so readily. Every step he’s made in school has been as though through molasses, with resistance at every turn. Allowances the alpha students get readily he has to fight tooth and nail for, and sometimes they refuse to even grant him those at all.

“Let go of me,” Yuuri whispers, nauseous and trembling.

“How do you get such high grades?” Doctor Berger murmurs, moving in very, very close. “And how has Celestino taken such an interest in you?”

Their bodies are nearly pressed together. Yuuri can feel Doctor Berger’s damp, tobacco-rich breath on his face. When he realizes what Doctor Berger is implying, his whole body goes cold.

“No,” he gasps, “No, what do you take me for-”

“Surely you can’t be surprised that I question your morals,” Doctor Berger breathes across his cheek, “Considering your choice of companionship.”

Doctor Berger’s hands are tight around his wrists, his broad body boxing him in. Fear hits him like ice, his pulse rabbit-quick and his breath coming in short, shallow bursts.

“No,” he sobs, and Doctor Berger doesn’t move-

And Yuuri _can’t breathe_. He gasps, clutching at his chest like a drowning man, taking in little sips of air that rattle through his ribs. It’s too much to speak, to say the horror this whole conversation has been, so he just gasps and cries and writhes in Doctor Berger’s grip.

Yuuri’s felt this panic before, where he feels like his heart is shutting down, like his throat is closing up, like he’s dying. His fingers are icy cold and numb, the feeling redirected to his frantically beating heart.

Doctor Berger releases him, taking a quick step back and looking to the frosted window nervously. Yuuri doesn’t hesitate, he gathers up his skirts, still sobbing, and clutches the closed doorknob with clumsy, numb hands.

“I know the students who sent you that kidney,” Doctor Berger snarls, one last knife in Yuuri’s overworked heart. “They’re right. That’s what awaits Victor Nikiforov, and it’s what awaits you if you don’t find more appropriate company.”

Yuuri fixes Doctor Berger with a heartsick stare as he finally manages to get the door open.

“You’re so cruel,” he breathes.

“At least I’m worth something,” Doctor Berger says.

_Dearest Victor,_

_I pray you forgive this letter. Your friendship has been of immeasurable help to me in this dark period of my life – without you, I surely would not have been able to handle the trials and tribulations of medical school. It is with a heavy heart that I must ask this: that we no longer meet within the sights of my fellows at the college. Your lifestyle is directly affecting my treatment here, and it’s becoming too much to bear. Perhaps I can see you during the breaks between semesters, or in secret far away from the other students, but I do not feel comfortable being seen with someone of your work because of the abuse I face from the others here. _

_I simply cannot carry on like this. _

_All my love,_

_Yuuri_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...........please don't kill me


	5. Victor Nikiforov

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lsdjkfghskldfjghlk literally every tag (i think) on this fic shows up in this chapter. there's a flashback to antisemitic violence as well, if you'd rather not read that please skip all the italicized bits! 
> 
> by the way, have you been paying attention to the chapter titles?

“Yuuri,” Victor hisses, silver hair falling messily around his face. He looks a fright, cheeks and lips pale, a button missed in his coat. The blue fabric crumples oddly around it.

“Victor,” Yuuri stammers, taking a step back. He winces as hurt flashes across Victor’s face, but he can’t bring himself to step forward to comfort him. His eyes flash across the lawns, where students hurry through the blustering cold to classes, back inside. Is anyone looking at him? Does anyone see them? What will happen to Yuuri if he maintains his relationship with Victor?

“What,” Victor stammers, holding up a crumpled bit of paper in his white, clenched fist. “What… I do not understand why you would send this to me. It’s a prank, surely.”

Yuuri swallows, flinching back, staring at the silver buckles on Victor’s shoes. “It’s, um. It’s.” He takes a deep breath. “I only wish to make things easier.”

“My life has never been easier than when I’m with you,” Victor whispers. “Surely… I had thought for you it was the same. I truly thought, but-”

“I care for you,” Yuuri pleads, fists clenching the stiff fabric of his skirts. “But it’s everyone else, I can’t have them thinking-”

“Think what?” Victor hisses, cutting him off, “Think that you might actually like me? That you would willingly spend time with a-”

“Victor, don’t,” Yuuri pleads, putting his fingers over Victor’s trembling lips. A few of the pedestrians’ eyes flit to them as they walk past, a few scholars look up from their books, outside the university library.

Victor laughs, angry, hurt, cruel. “Why not? I’d wager I’ve had half these alphas in my bed, or their fathers, at least. They know who I am. I know who I am, and I’m not ashamed of it. I didn’t become the most sought after whore in all of the east end, all of bloody London by being a coward. Not like you.”

Yuuri steps back. He’s trembling all over, his eyes fill with frustrated tears, the words coming like a knife in the heart. “Why won’t you let me take care of you,” he hisses, “Why do you have to do… To be...”

“I had someone say they’d care for me,” Victor shouts, once, cheeks now an ugly flushed red. “Except you can imagine what he demanded of me for being cared for. I was hungry and I let him, even though his alpha musk made me sick, but soon his love of drink made it impossible for him to keep me fed, and he got angry, and I will _never_ let that happen to me again. Don’t you dare ask me to do that.”

“I’m sorry, Victor,” Yuuri manages through the lump in his throat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know-”

“I know it’s hard,” Victor spits, “I’ve handled it just fine. I don’t see why you can’t.”

Yuuri whispers, “The nail that sticks up gets hammered down. That’s what they said to me at home, when I didn’t just want to bond and breed for a rich family. It’s what I’ve been fighting my entire life, and I’m so tired. I’m not saying this to push you away from me-”

“And yet,” Victor snaps, “You’ve succeeded.”

Yuuri’s eyes fill with tears. He feels like he’s falling, falling, falling. He just wanted things to be easier, and now he’s ruined it all. He’ll be alone, friendless, isolated. Isolated. Trapped in a city that hates him at a school that wouldn’t care if he died.

Yuuri stares at him, eyes impossibly wide, watery with unshed tears. “I don’t think you’re a whore. Not – not in the way they mean it.”

He nibbles at his lip in agitation, sparks of pain going through his mouth.

“Don’t do that,” Victor whispers. “You’ll just make yourself bleed.”

Yuuri ducks his head in shame.

“I,” he tries, but his throat is closed up. He covers his face and thinks, _I’m worth nothing_. There’s nothing left for him here, and he turns to leave, wiping miserably at his eyes.

There’s a flash of panic on Victor’s pretty face.

“I just can’t believe after all this time, everything I’ve said to you, you’re ashamed of me,” Victor snaps, voice cracking.

“I’m not ashamed of you,” Yuuri shouts, “I’m ashamed of _me_.”

There’s a long, heavy beat of silence. Victor’s eyes widen, his lips part in surprise, in realization.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri says, swaying on his feet, his breath coming in quicker, shallower.

“Wait,” Victor says again, voice a little higher this time, “There’s no need to cry. Why are you crying?”

“I need to go,” Yuuri says, shaking his head as tears fall down his cheeks. It’s cold, the tracks they leave. It’s very cold.

“You’ve nothing to be ashamed of,” Victor says again, voice tinged with desperation, “Can’t we just talk about this?”

“No we can’t,” Yuuri sobs again, “You think I’m ashamed of you, but the only person I’m ashamed of is me.”

“Yuuri,” Victor says softly, the slow creep of realization making his pretty blue eyes fill with tears. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to me since I moved here all those years ago. You’re-”

“I’m worth nothing, Victor,” Yuuri shouts, wrenching his sleeve out of Victor’s grip. Victor takes a step back, inhaling shakily with a stricken expression across his face. “I’m worth nothing. I swore I’d never hurt you, and now look at me. You deserve better.”

“Wait,” Victor whispers. “I was too harsh, perhaps. Do you really intend to leave me?”

“You’ll be better for it,” Yuuri cries.

“But,” Victor stammers, “But, Yuuri-”

“Please,” Yuuri pleads through thick tears. “I can’t do this anymore.”

He turns on his heel and all but runs through the courtyard, ignoring Victor’s desperate cries of “Wait, please!” howling like the winter wind all around him.

James is the only one in the building when Yuuri makes it inside, and Yuuri can’t even be bothered to maintain composure as he sinks to his knees and weeps.

“Yuuri,” James says, alarmed. “Yuuri, what’s wrong?”

Yuuri shakes his head, squirming away as James comes to sit beside him. James is silent for a long moment, emitting soothing pheromones that just make Yuuri sick with how much he misses Victor’s sweet scent around him, how it felt to be soothed by that warm ginger, spiced blanket.

“Was it Victor?” James asks, softly. His tone is soft, comforting, utterly condescending. “I suppose this means you won’t be with him tonight?”

Yuuri shakes his head. Have they really followed him so much that they know he spends his Friday evenings with Victor?

James continues, eyes glittering with tenderness, “I’m sorry, Yuuri. It’s a mistake to put your trust in a whore-”

“Shut _up_,” Yuuri spits, pushing James away from him with all his might. He can’t deal with this right now, with too-close James and the memory of Victor’s sour distress in his mind. “Please, just, please-”

He shakes his head, anger and misery bubbling in his gut, and storms away. It’s almost enough to see the shocked expression on James’ face – almost.

But it all still hurts so, so badly.

_ _

Fog rolls in over the streets of the East End, over the cold, empty shipyards and pockmarked pavement. The dirty electric lamps shine eerily upon it, faded rings of light that keep the dark cloaked figures in shadow.

It’s the kind of fog that chills down to the bones, the kind that demands a cozy night in, a book read by warm lamplight – which is the kind of evening Victor Nikiforov had intended to enjoy, but then-

He shakes his head, long, silver hair falling in ghostly cascades down his back. He hasn’t put in the normal effort, dressed himself up to the normal degree of perfection, for his job tonight, but that hardly matters now. His _job_ is what’s put him in this situation in the first place.

The conversation still echoes in his head, painful like the clanging church bells that wake him up in the morning, like a subtle punishment from on high.

Anger flashes through him, sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel, and he grips his chest as though that’ll stop the pain of it.

He understands, is the worst of it. He’s seen, again and again and again, how his courses, his fellow students beat Yuuri down until he was scrambling with bloody nails against the stone wall of everything, desperate for any way out.

Victor wanted so desperately to be the support Yuuri needed, to be the person Victor had needed when he first came to London all those years ago, but it wasn’t enough. Victor wasn’t enough for him, because Victor is nothing but an east end whore, and no matter who he loves no one will ever be able to love him in return.

In the end, Victor was the final nail in the coffin that drove Yuuri away. If only he hadn’t been so stupid, so impulsive, so angry after getting the letter. If only he hadn’t yelled, if he had listened instead, Yuuri might still be his.

He’d truly thought, though – the shy way Yuuri looked at him from under his thick black lashes, the slow part of his lips, the sunlight illuminating his pink cheek through a crack in Victor’s greasy window.

It’s a dull, thudding realization, how deep his affections for Yuuri go. When he was young and first working the streets, he’d imagine someone coming up to the alphas who grabbed his wrists and insisted he spend the night with them for cheap, someone fighting them off and taking him away.

Being screamed at, but then there would be someone to wipe his tears, to tell him it wasn’t his fault he was being treated this way. Yakov snarling at him about something, and there Yuuri was, a light in the hallway protesting against the things he said.

Victor shakes his head. He’d thought Yakov would be that person for him. His mama knew Yakov from her childhood, ages and ages ago, and Victor had thought that perhaps he’d finally found a friend when she put them in touch. He’d tried to hide the prostitution from him, but Yakov has many friends in many places, and when he’d found out he’d shouted until his face was red with rage.

Yakov offered him housing out of obligation to his mother, though Victor had continued out of spite. There were a few times where Yakov would find him on a street corner and try to drag him home, but at that point Victor was too afraid to let Yakov care for him, and they’d shout at each other until it rung through the alleyways like thunder and Victor was half-snarling-half-sobbing like a feral cat. No one would take this from him and leave him wanting, not again.

Yakov never kicked him out, though. Other than loyalty to his mother, Victor can’t understand why he hasn’t. Victor won’t stop, though, no matter what – he needs to work, he needs to.

He doesn’t suppose he’ll ever really forget the gnawing hunger in his belly, keeping him awake in the cold, lonely morning hours, the way he’d wept in relief in the middle of a busy London street the first time he’d bought a pretty little tartelette with his own money and stuffed the whole thing in his mouth all at once.

Yuuri was busy with his studies, but Victor dreamed of the warm springtime, sharing pastries with him and walking hand and hand by the Thames, that dirty, polluted thing. It’s all gone, now, and it’s Victor’s fault for saying those things to him, knowing Yuuri’s sensitivities. He’d just been so _hurt_, because even the person he loved most was unable to see him for anything but a whore.

All Victor has now are his bed, his clothes, his food, his alphas. He inhales, sharply, the reality of his crushing loneliness like a thick fog around him.

I love him, Victor thinks, desperately, I love him, and now I’ll never see him again.

He shouldn’t have said those things, he should try to make it better, it can be better, he can write a letter of apology right now-

“Victor Nikiforov,”

Victor whirls around, staring at him hard, unable to stop his body from tensing – but it’s just an alpha, with dark brown eyes and a tweed suit, weighted down with a heavy bag of something.

“Ah,” Victor says, “You’ve found me.”

The alpha smiles. “That I have. The loveliest whore in all of London. What luck that I happened to run into you tonight.”

Victor doesn’t respond to that. He certainly doesn’t _feel_ like the loveliest whore in all of London – he feels like a washed-out rag, fraying with overuse, a stone’s throw from being tossed out with the day’s rubbish.

Rejected.

“I must say,” the alpha continues, “You look even lovelier in person. The way your hair reflects the moonlight, the soft white of your skin.”

He reaches out, softly, hesitantly. Victor feels himself lean in a little closer, letting the praise wash over him. The alpha touches his cheek tenderly, like he’s made of porcelain, his thumb pressing just a bit harder as he caresses down to the pouting pink of his lips.

“You truly could be a porcelain doll,” the alpha whispers. “The jewel of anyone’s collection.”

_Anyone but Yuuri’s_, Victor thinks, bitterly.

“The jewel of yours, perhaps?” Victor says, coquettish, batting his painted lashes prettily.

The alpha grins, wide and toothy beneath his bushy brown mustache, smelling of mint and tobacco and something sharp. “Oh, you have no idea how much I desire you.”

Victor fights the urge to roll his eyes. He’s heard that dozens of times, each one as superficial as the last.

“I’m afraid I have rather high standards for who I take to bed with me,” Victor says, not bothering to mask the bite in his voice. That suit is old, the leather of his shoes dull, stubble prickles along the alphas cheeks and chin.

The alpha pauses for a moment, tapping his chin. “I can pay whatever you need, whatever your price,” he says.

Victor raises his eyebrow skeptically.

“I’ve saved to be able to spend time with you,” the alpha continues. “Months and months. I’ve wanted to be with you, to comb your pretty silver hair, to listen to you talk and talk about the world.”

“Not many alphas wish me to talk,” Victor says softly.

“I do,” the alpha says, “You’re so, so lovely. Someone ought to treat you the way you deserve to be treated.”

Victor ducks his head to hide the tears that well up, unbidden, at this. There’s so much he wants to say to that – there’s the war between thinking he’s been treated exactly as he deserves and knowing, through Yuuri, that being treated better was possible.

He’d do anything to recapture that feeling, anything, even if it’s just for a moment before this alpha fucks him and discards him too.

“Alright,” Victor whispers, hoping the alpha can’t smell his sadness on him.

“Lead me on?” the alpha all but purrs, holding out his arm gently.

Victor takes it. He smiles, softly, utterly fake.

“Does my lord have a name?” Victor asks, cocking his head to the side, to reveal the smooth curve of his unbitten neck.

The alpha grins. “James,” he says, kissing Victor’s hand tenderly. “James Hastings.”

Victor blinks awake, head throbbing like the worst hangover he’s ever had. He’s disoriented for an instant, and when he groans, trying to still the strange swirling lights that surround him, he finds the sound muffled strangely.

And then it all comes back to him.

_A cloth at his mouth and nose, forcing him to inhale something burning and chemical. His vision going dark, the knife he keeps beneath his pillow for particularly unruly clients clattering to the floor…_

_James’ fingers, clenched into his hair, and a low dark chuckle coming from him. _

Victor’s eyes fly open, whole body shuddering, and he jerks forward with a horrified shriek – but there’s something holding him back, something in his mouth. His head throbs miserably, but Victor thrashes, looking from side to side in a panic. He’s been gagged, the bit of fabric knotted uncomfortably at the nape of his neck – but delicately, carefully, so his hair still splays out underneath him.

He’s lying somewhere, arms and legs spread and bound to what feels like an operating table. It’s freezing, and his body trembles with cold – he’s completely naked still, having removed his clothes at his apartment, and a humiliated flush fills his cheeks as he desperately tries to squeeze his knees together, to protect what little modesty he has.

“Mm, the jewel is awake.”

Victor’s head jerks to the side, exposing his pale neck, and he stares up in horror at the alpha above him.

He tries to speak, to say anything, but the gag muffles his words.

James slaps him, Victor’s head snapping back, and his eyes water at the warm sting that blooms on his cheeks. He stares up at the ceiling, whimpering, fists clenching and unclenching and straining against the bonds that hold him down.

His heart pounds in his chest, a caged beast banging against his ribcage like it’s trying to burst out of his body.

“I thought I might need to gag you,” James hisses, “They always try to plead with me, to beg me not to hurt them. Like they deserved mercy, those – those fucking _whores_, what I did to them was mercy, stopping them – stop _whimpering_! Shut up!”

Victor stops, immediately, shock and terror making his whole body go rigid. He flinches as the alpha moves, expecting another slap, and his eyelids flutter reflexively, nervously as a hand comes to caress his cheek. The alpha’s knuckle drags along the sharp bone in his cheek, drawing a high, terrified keen from Victor’s throat, one which he can’t swallow down. He flinches again, trying so hard to stop the noises coming from his mouth, but a deep pit of terror is welling up in his belly and he feels bile rising in the back of his throat

He knows who this alpha is.

They didn’t show photographs of the omega corpses, at least not in the papers – the drawn images and descriptions were gruesome enough. The women’s throats cut, their abdomens slashed open with increasing, bloody rage. Crime scenes a mess of gore, organs removed with surgical precision. The omegas uteruses missing, only ever found for one of the bodies – the poor omega who had incurred the killer’s wrath so awfully that he’d hacked her body and face to bits.

Victor trembles down to his soul as he stares down who’s taken him – the alpha they called Jack the Ripper, the terror of the whores of East London.

James Hastings, an unremarkable man who’d sweet talked him to bed, kidnapped him in the safety of his own apartment because he’d let his guard down.

James hands run down his neck, prodding at his scent gland, which emits waves and waves of sour terror into the room. He prods it, chuckling when Victor shrinks away – or tries to, the bindings preventing him from moving very far.

Victor thrashes his head back and forth, tears falling from his eyes. James laughs again, eyes glittering in amusement. He stops, eyeing Victor like a cat eyes a mouse.

His other hand travels down Victor’s side, sliding over his belly, pressing just below his navel. He prods around that area, between the jutting bones of his hips, as though feeling for something. Victor struggles feebly, drool dripping down his cheeks from behind the gag, whimpering and crying and pleading incomprehensibly.

When James presses just slightly lower, to the side, Victor squeaks and squeezes his thighs together as hard as he can, though his ankles burn awfully from the ropes binding him to the table.

James freezes. Victor shudders, his blood roaring in his ears.

Then James hisses, “I don’t want to _fuck_ you.”

Victor whimpers in response, body curling inward, just a bit. That’s all alphas have ever wanted with him.

When Victor meets James’ gaze, terror pierces him like ice-cold steel. There’s _hate_ in those eyes, something burning and visceral, and for the first time it really, really hits him.

He’s going to die here.

James lets out a roar and Victor _screams_, waiting for the torture to start – but instead there’s a loud _crash_ as James upends a table, bottles shattering on the wooden floor. A sick, medicinal smell mixes with hot alpha anger and omega distress, and James howls like a crazed beast as he slams his hands against the walls, against a shelf of medical textbooks, sending the pages flying like ripped flesh.

“You think I want to _fuck you_?” James screams, sending a skeleton model flying, showering the room with shattered human bones. “You sick, fucking slut, I’ll rip your heart out, I’ll rip you apart, I hate you, _I hate you-”_

His fist collides with Victor’s exposed stomach, knocking the breath from his body, and before he can struggle through the pain to breathe in again James grips his neck and _squeezes_ so that the blood pounds behind his eyes, so tight he feels they might pop out of his skull.

He can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, his lungs _burn_-

James stares deep into Victor’s bloodshot, red rimmed eyes – and suddenly, he calms. It’s as if the rage had never been there.

He releases Victor’s neck, watching as Victor chokes and coughs miserably, unable to breathe in deeply because of the gag. His fists come down to his side, away from Victor’s body, and he takes a deep, shuddering breath as he re-rights the table and places the scalpel on it.

“Not yet,” James says, half to himself. “Not yet.” His gaze flits to Victor, calm, _hateful_. “Can’t ruin your pretty face yet. I’m going to take my time with you. I know no one’s coming for you. You’re a _whore_, and no one is looking for you.”

That hits Victor worse than a punch in the gut.

No one is looking for him. He was out because Yuuri didn’t come over, because he doesn’t want to be seen with him.

Victor thinks of Yuuri, of his soft, dark eyes, his sweet face – how cherished he made Victor feel, holding him, talking to him like Victor’s thoughts actually mattered. He thinks of Yuuri in his college dorm room, safe and asleep – far away from him.

And Yuuri will wake up tomorrow to the news of Victor’s body being found, naked and mutilated, and Victor will have never plucked up the courage to tell him he loves him, and Victor doesn’t even know if Yuuri feels the same way, at this point.

He’ll find out tomorrow. They’ll never see each other again, and the last memories Victor has of Yuuri are his tear-stained face turning away from him, shouting _I’m nothing_ like he truly believed it.

The thought breaks him.

Victor begins to sob, brokenly, tears and snot dripping down his cheeks and into the gag around his mouth. He flops back against the table, weeping openly, terror and hopelessness clawing a void into his chest. He’s going to die, he’s going to die, and no one will care because no one ever cared about him-

He doesn’t even notice James has moved away from him until cruel hands grip his chin and force him to look into those hateful brown eyes one more time. James’ face is blurred with his tears, and he blinks furiously to focus, cheek still stinging from the slap earlier.

“I told you that you would be the jewel of any alpha’s collection,” James says, “And I intend to savor this, to be able to return to it. I gave the others a quick death, slit their throats before I cut them. You, though, you, _you_-”

James grits his teeth, balling his hands into fists, biting his lip so hard it bleeds. Victor stares at him in wide-eyed terror, still weeping, watching James calm himself. He takes deep, shuddering breaths, stepping back – then, without warning, he slaps Victor _hard_, so hard he tastes blood in the back of his mouth, so hard a trickle of blood drips from his nose.

Victor shrieks as his head snaps to the side. For a moment, the shock of it snaps him out of his misery.

“You thought you were above them, only letting rich alphas fuck you,” James roars, gripping Victor’s long hair so hard strands of it are ripped from his skull, “But I’ll show you, you’ll see your body is just as _filthy_ as theirs. You’re nothing. _Nothing_, _do you hear me?_”

Victor whimpers, nodding miserably, beginning to sob again. He’s scared what Jack will do if he doesn’t. He’s so, so scared, every nerve in his body alive with it, bile rising in the back of his throat.

“_Go to London for me, mm, Vitya? Be happy there, be safe. Maybe you can even go to America one day.”_

“_But Mama, won’t you come too? Please, I’m so scared for you here.”_

“_I’m old, my love, my old bones can’t adjust to a new place like that. You’re young, though. You have a better life waiting for you. You really want to stay here and have some old alpha’s babies and wonder if the next day they’ll be taken from you?”_

“_But Mama, please, I don’t want to be away from you. I don’t want to leave you.”_

_A soft hand caressing his cheek, the touch of a soft cloth kerchief against his lashes, wet with tears. _

“_You’re all I have left in the world, Vitya,” Mama says, “And that’s why I know you need to leave. It’ll be better for you there, I know it.” _

The snap of a camera shutter draws his attention, and he stares around wildly, wondering what fresh horror Jack’s brought for him.

“I wanted to capture this on video,” Jack gasps, licking his lips gleefully, “But I don’t have an assistant to film, so this will have to do. I want to remember this moment forever, and thanks to this...”

The camera flashes one more time, a puff of smoke rising up from it. Victor swallows. He’s allowed photographs of his naked body to be taken before, as part of larger pornographic studios, but this, _this_-

He feels _violated_, once again trying feebly to cover what little he can of his exposed body. Jack wants to photograph his murder, his _dissection_ so he can remember it again and again. Oh, _god_.

Victor shakes his head, looking at the camera pleadingly, and his eyes widen in horror as the camera captures his desperate, inconsolable misery. Each exposure taking time, building up with nothing he can do to stop it. Jack moves the camera a few times, capturing different angles.

He runs his finger along Victor’s belly, deceptively gentle. Then, he takes a scalpel and taps it against his belly button teasingly.

Even in death, James will be tormenting him. Looking at the photos of his naked, mutilated body, remembering how he died, what it felt like to run the scalpel along his exposed flesh.

Victor sobs, squeezing his eyes shut. He sobs, and sobs, and sobs, begging for someone, anyone to come find him, begging for this to end-

“_Mama, Mama!”_

“_Shh, Vitya, shh, we can’t be heard, shh. I’m here, I’m right here.”_

_The acrid stench of burning, the crackle of flames a low hum beneath the loud braying of livestock and the screaming, the awful screaming, a chorus of chaos from just behind them. Sometimes there will be a scream cut short, the lack of an end to it ringing in his ears even louder than the noises. Wood burns, glass shatters, children cry for their parents._

_Mama holds him, clutches him tight in a thorny thicket in the forest, fire behind them and black unending woods ahead. There are other people in the forest, hiding, desperately soothing their children’s cries so they can’t be heard._

It was supposed to be better here.

It was supposed to be better, and his first landlord snarled at him, _you’re two weeks late on rent, __if you can’t get the money tonight you’ll be on the streets__, _and the doctor’s hands were cold and his eyes hateful as he took the child from inside of him, Victor knowing all the while that it was nonviable from the moment it took root in the womb of a lonely, poor prostitute with no one to look after it, him, them – and Yuuri.

Yuuri was the best thing that had ever happened to him in all his years here. His eyes sparkled when he thought hard about something, his body curled up with laughter as though his joy was pulsing through every inch of it. Victor had gotten used to being mistreated – by clients, who knocked on his door in the middle of the night and snarled at him until he gave in, by Yakov, who took every opportunity to tell him how his mother would hate him for what he’s done and nodded smugly every time he saw Victor limping or bruised or sad from the night before, by everyone.

With Yuuri, though, he’d begun to believe it didn’t have to be that way. They were struggling, but they could get through it together. Victor didn’t have to be alone anymore.

_Mama whispers in his ear, soothing things, so soft he can barely hear her. There’s shouting, cruel and loud and drunken, cheers from a group of men on horseback. Victor doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to get the sound of screaming out of his ears, the reek of smoke thick in his lungs, so he clings to his mama, buries his face in her chest and muffles his sobs against her skin. He doesn’t want to die. _

He doesn’t want to die.

James presses the blade of the scalpel against his breastbone.

Victor’s eyes fill with tears and he shakes his head, pleading behind the gag, but James just snarls and slices down towards his belly.

It _burns_.

“Nothing too deep yet,” James snarls, face a twisted mask of rage. “Need to be calm, can’t do to you what I did to Mary. I need to know it’s _you _I’m slicing open. See your pretty face twisted with pain.”

Blood beads up at the little cut at his chest. Victor’s whole body shakes. He’s panicking, he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe-

There’s a knock at the door.

Someone’s _here_.

James swears, a string of filth that Victor has hardly even heard from the mouths of whores. He rushes around, grabbing a thick canvas cloth, and tosses it haphazardly over Victor’s body.

“If you make a noise, I will rip your beating heart from your body,” Jack hisses, his ugly scowl the last thing Victor sees before his world is plunged into darkness.

His breathing is so loud, rattling underneath the cloth. He blows his nose, all his sobbing clogging it and making it that much harder to breathe. He misses his mama so badly it hurts. Will she ever find out what happened to him?

James’s voice comes from somewhere far away, sickeningly sweet, the same voice he’d used to pick up Victor.

“Ah, hello. I was just finishing up some work. What brings you here?”

The other person is soft, timid – his voice doesn’t carry enough for Victor to hear what he’s said.

“Oh, no, no, don’t leave, darling. I’ll just be a few moments. Why don’t you come in?”

Victor’s blood runs cold. He opens his mouth to scream, to tell this poor bystander to run, but James speaks again.

“A little dangerous for an omega to be out alone so late at night, isn’t it?”

Oh god, oh god. He recognizes that scent. Rose and chrysanthemum, sobbing on a London street all those months ago.

_No_.

“What brings you to my morgue at this hour, Yuuri Katsuki?”

_No. No, no no no NO-_

Victor _screams_. He screams, and writhes, shouting as loud as he can, “Run, get out of here, he’ll kill you, Yuuri, no, please, god _no_-”

The gag steals his words, the blood roaring in his ears. He can’t let James hurt Yuuri, he loves him, he loves him so much, but the bonds are too tight and everything _hurts so much_.

There’s a crash. James is shouting, roaring, raging like a demon from hell, there’s the sound of shattering glass-

And Yuuri’s shriek pierces him like a knife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so literally no one is surprised about who "jack" is sdflghsldjk
> 
> oh noooooo~ what's gonna happen~


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> time to go apeshit babey!!!

Yuuri watches the sun set from the window in his room, lying listlessly on his bed. He feels so low energy, like even the effort of moving his body from the creaky mattress would be too much for him. Any other Friday, he’d be well on his way to Victor’s apartment, to stay over for dinner and maybe go out for drinks, but not tonight.

Not tonight.

He takes a deep, shuddering breath. He hasn’t moved for hours, the weight of everything that’s happened pressing down on him like stones over his chest.

Victor would know how to make him feel better.

A tear drips out of the corner of Yuuri’s eye, down his cheek. He’s failed his exams, he’s failed his only friend here. They tried so hard to force him out of school, and he thinks they might have succeeded.

His kaasan and tousan are going to be so upset with him. They stood by him after everything, and this is how he’s repaid them. Minako-sensei took him on even when everyone told her not too, that he’d never be a good doctor in between all the babies he was sure to have, that his alpha would hate for him to work.

Yuuri can barely breathe through his own misery.

If he were with Victor he’d feel better.

He pushed Victor away, though. It’s only fitting, Yuuri supposes, that the person he cared for the most here was the person he let down more than anything. The look on Victor’s face as he realized that Yuuri meant what he said, that they couldn’t be seen together – Yuuri doesn’t think he’ll ever forget it.

He should apologize.

He should go to his writing desk immediately and say he didn’t mean it, that Victor was the best thing that’s happened to him. How can he, though, now that Victor knows what he’s really like? A coward, a miserable, pathetic coward.

_I’m sorry, _Yuuri thinks, _I’m sorry I wasn’t good enough for you._

He looks back at the window, where the sun sinks below the horizon, and doesn’t bother trying to move.

Someone’s slid a letter under his door.

Yuuri wakes from his daze at the sound of rustling, and curiosity gives him just enough energy to go pick it up. He opens up the door, but there’s no one outside, in the ugly gray hallway. The doors are all closed, the occupants all inside or at dinner in the cafeteria.

He frowns, tearing open the thick yellow paper.

_Look in tomorrow’s newspaper for Victor’s body. Ripping him shall be the greatest pleasure I’ve ever known. Far greater than anything he’s ever experienced._

Rage fills Yuuri’s body, like nothing he’s ever felt before.

His hands shake, his teeth clench so tight his ears ring. They just can’t leave him alone, can they? Even at his lowest, facing failure like he’s never known, they can’t help but torment him.

Yuuri _rages_.

He makes it to the alpha’s dormitories. It’s a long walk, and Yuuri barely remembers how he did it, he’s so blinded with anger. It gets later, and later, and later, but god help anyone who attempts to hurt him tonight.

Yuuri storms into the lounge, where he sees some of his classmates, plenty of alphas he doesn’t recognize. A few heads turn to him, surprised.

He shouts, holding up the letter, “_Which one of you did this?_”

No one speaks. One of the alphas, a personal favorite of Doctor Berger’s, makes the mistake of snorting out a laugh, and Yuuri feels something inside him snap.

“You utter _bastard_,” Yuuri shrieks, grabbing him by the lapels of his jacket and backing him up against the wood paneled wall, “You think this is funny, do you, what you’ve done to me? Did you send the kidney? _Did you send me this letter?_”

The alpha’s mouth drops open in shock. Everyone’s staring at him, at them, but Yuuri has never cared less about anything in his life.

“You think it’s funny, hm, picking on one of the only omegas in the entire school? You think I don’t deserve to be here? I’ve seen you grades, you monster, and I deserve to be here more than you do. _Tell me that you sent this._”

“I didn’t,” the alpha stammers, “I didn’t. We didn’t.”

“_Liar_,” Yuuri cries, pushing him back with a solid _thud_. He whirls around to the crowds, all staring in shock, none touching him. “It would be easy, wouldn’t it, to take a kidney from one of those cadavers. No one would notice, especially when you know the professor feels _exactly as you do_.”

He snarls, stepping forward, and the crowd steps back.

“What is it, then, are you jealous?” Yuuri snaps, “Intimidated? Angry that I’m doing better than you? Or is it Victor? You all wish you could get close to him, and you hate that _I am_. You’ll never be near him, understand?”

Yuuri laughs, then, long and loud and hysterical.

“I know what it feels like,” he snarls, “When his hands unlace my corsets. I know how his lips taste. I hear how you all talk about him and I’m glad to know you’ll never know what I do about him. _Fuck_ you. He’s worth more than ten of you combined. At least he’s _kind_.”

“It was just a joke,” one of the alphas grumbles, “Can’t even bloody take that, I suppose.”

“You’re hysterical,” yet another one of them laughs, “Do you think the professors will let you stay in when they learn about your outburst tonight?”

“That’ll be their loss,” Yuuri snarls. “I’m the best student in our year, and you damn well know it. Now if you’ll excuse me, _gentlemen_, I’m going to spend the evening with Victor. None of you get that privilege.”

And with that, he storms out, whole body trembling.

The adrenaline wears off about halfway to Victor’s apartment and Yuuri collapses in an alleyway, sobbing.

They’re going to tell Doctor Berger what he said, the – the _implications_ he made about the nature of his and Victor’s relationship. He’ll be forced out of the school. They’ll torment him endlessly, and it wasn’t even true. Well, it was, but not in the way he was implying.

How can he protect Victor if he can’t even keep himself in medical school?

Yuuri wipes his eyes furiously, still feeling bitter glee at the shock on all of their faces. They torment him anyway, don’t they? So why deny himself the happiness of being with Victor when he knows what he wants will never be in line with what everyone thinks of him.

Doctor Berger was wrong.

Yuuri’s brain has always been against him. Minako said so. She helped him see that despite his own fragility, he was intelligent and capable. He learned to look at his own actions as an outside observer.

Every day, he’s gotten feedback from Doctor Berger that he’s not enough, that he’s worthless, useless, an idiot – but through that he’s continued to score higher than his classmates on all his exams. And Professor Cialdini – one of the finest medical practitioners in all of England, all of _Europe_ – has always been impressed with him!

Damn them, damn his own brain, Yuuri thinks furiously through his tears. It took everything that Doctor Berger was saying and made him believe it was true.

God help anyone who attempts to stop him tonight, Yuuri thinks as he makes his way through the seedy east end. The now familiar street signs have become a comfort, the flickering of candlelight in apartments up above them.

“Victor,” Yuuri shouts as he knocks furiously on the door to his apartment, “Victor, I’m sorry! I don’t care who’s with you now, I’m sorry! I’ll say it a hundred times!”

The door swings open with a creak, revealing a dark, empty apartment.

No one’s there.

Yuuri blinks, uncomprehending as he enters the apartment. Victor would never leave the door unlocked. He flicks on a lamp, flooding the room with low light. The bedroom door is open, where Yuuri knows Victor takes his clients, and he recognizes the set of sheets Victor uses with them. There’s a knife on the floor, the one Victor keeps below his pillows.

There’s a cloth beside the table, not one of Victor’s.

Something, Yuuri realizes immediately, is very, very wrong.

Victor is not here.

This was not a robbery. The silver candlesticks lie on the floor, wax dripping into the wood as though the candles within them were recently put out.

There’s no blood. Victor is not here, and Victor was taken, but Victor is alive.

For now.

Cold, heartrending dread settles throughout Yuuri’s body.

The letter he’d gotten is still clenched in his fist, the one he’d thought was a prank.

_Look in tomorrow’s newspaper for Victor’s body_.

The realization pierces him like ice.

Jack’s got Victor.

“Yakov,” Yuuri cries, pounding on the door to his apartment, “Yakov, _Yakov-_”

The door swings open to reveal a very irritated Yakov, dressed in his nightclothes. He raises his eyes in momentary surprise, but soon they narrow again, and he opens his mouth.

Yuuri cuts him off before he can speak and says, desperate and shaking, “Yakov, have you seen Victor at all this evening?”

Yakov scowls. “I try my hardest not to see Victor at night. You know what he gets up to.”

“Not at all?” Yuuri pleads, “Please, I think he’s in danger.”

“I know he’s in danger,” Yakov snaps, “He’s always in danger if he keeps at… Well, you know what. Now, Yuuri, I’m going back to-”

“I think someone’s going to hurt him,” Yuuri bursts out, “Don’t you care about that? How can you be so cruel about him?”

Yakov’s mouth drops open, unused to Yuuri’s anger, and he snaps, “I’ve been worried about him since I met him! You think I enjoy seeing him like this? I made a promise to his mother that I’d look after him, but if he’s hell-bent on self destruction-”

“Do you know,” Yuuri spits, seething with rage, “How he got into prostitution in the first place? When he first moved here, when he had no one to help him, his landlord all but forced him to if he didn’t want to end up on the streets. Where were you then, Yakov? He needed someone, he needed you, and you weren’t there for him. And you think you have cause to shame him now!”

Yakov splutters, “I didn’t – I didn’t know him then! I had no idea, I would have helped him-”

“No you wouldn’t,” Yuuri cries, “Because you won’t help him now! You do nothing but yell at him! It hurts him so much, he wouldn’t tell you, but I know it does, I’ve seen how he is afterward. And you don’t care now, so how can you tell me you would have cared then?”

Yakov’s face is going red with some combination of anger, shock, and maybe even a bit of guilt.

Yuuri has more to say, but Victor’s time is running out (_has it already run out? Will he find his broken body after it’s too late? Will he read the newspaper tomorrow and-_).

“Take these,” Yuuri snaps, shoving the silver candlesticks into Yakov’s arms. He scrambles to catch them, “They belonged to Victor’s mother. Don’t let anything happen to them, please.”

Then he runs, faster than he’s ever run in his life.

“Chris,” Yuuri gasps, “Chris – oh, thank heavens. Have you seen Victor this evening?”

Chris blinks, face caked with makeup, lashes even thicker and darker than usual. There’s an alpha by him, clearly flirting, but Yuuri can’t force himself to care. Chris is lovely and flirtatious and will have no problem picking up other clients.

“Please,” Yuuri gasps as Chris’ gaze flits to the alpha.

“He was out earlier,” Chris says, a nervous furrow appearing in his impeccably plucked brow. “A bunch of us got drinks before heading out for the night. He stayed with us for a bit, but wandered off by himself after a while.” He narrows his eyes. “I remember being surprised. He’s usually not working on Friday evenings.”

Yuuri flinches. “His apartment is a mess. He’s not there, but it was unlocked, and I’m worried – oh, Chris, look.”

He holds out the letter. Chris takes it, brow still furrowed, and as he reads it his eyes widen in horror.

“Go to the police,” he breathes, “Immediately. It can’t be a coincidence.”

“Oh dear god,” Yuuri moans in horror. He keeps hoping he’s got it wrong, that this isn’t really happening. Terror creeps into his bones like the rolling fog, chilling him to the core. Chris would never suggest going to the police unless there was no other option.

Chris pulls him into a hug, nervousness rich in his own scent. “Go,” he hisses, pulling back abruptly.

Yuuri runs.

“You know,” the officer drawls, “We get a ‘confirmed’ Jack the Ripper letter every few weeks.”

“But,” Yuuri stammers, “But, please, this is serious. I went to his apartment, there were signs of a struggle-”

“And you said,” the officer sighs, bored, “That your… friend, he’s of the unfortunate class?”

“Yes,” Yuuri breathes, “Yes.”

“Rumpled room, not there at odd hours of the night… I’m afraid there’s a much simpler explanation than the one you’ve come up with,” the officer says. He’s not even looking at Yuuri, he’s staring down at his nails. There’s a cuticle sticking out from the side of one grimy finger, and he picks at it absently.

“_No_,” Yuuri cries, thrusting the letter in the officer’s face, shocking him into looking up. “No, I know him, I know there’s something wrong.”

“I suppose we can keep an eye out,” the officer rolls his eyes. “We’ll be sure to let you know if we run into him.” He smirks. “A few hours later, of course.”

Yuuri slams his hands down on the desk, face flushed with rage. Why, why will no one help him?

An image of Victor’s pops into his mind, his throat slit from ear to ear, choking out blood and reaching for help that will never come.

Yuuri sobs, tears springing to his eyes.

“This isn’t funny!” he snarls, “My friend may have been taken by Jack the Ripper, he must be terrified, he could be dying – and you don’t seem to care at all! Isn’t it your job to protect us? Victor needs your help!”

“Now see here,” the officer snaps, standing up. Yuuri’s taller than him, but he shrinks back regardless. “I won’t tolerate this kind of disrespect. Get out, now.”

“No,” Yuuri pleads, tears streaming down his cheeks, “No, but Victor-”

“Victor’s not my concern” The officer roars, “Do you have any idea what kind of trouble happens in the east end? One prostitute not at home is nothing. Now, I said we’d keep an eye out, which is more than he deserves.”

“But,” Yuuri pleads, “But, no, I won’t go-”

The officer grabs Yuuri’s arm, pulling him towards the door roughly. “You’re wasting my time,” he snaps, tossing Yuuri out into the cold.

“Victor needs your help,” Yuuri shrieks towards the door, feeling a sharp stab of dread as the door slams shut. “He needs – fucking _pig_!”

Yuuri drops to his knees, head in his hands, in the middle of the sidewalk. The letter he’d brought to the police is still clenched between his fingers, and panic overtakes him like a wave.

His breathing quickens, his fingers tremble, cold and numb. Victor is in danger, he could already be dead, and there’s nothing anyone will do to help him.

They don’t care, none of them care!

Yuuri cares about Victor, he cares so deeply his heart aches with the intensity of it, and this is all Yuuri’s fault.

He wouldn’t have been out tonight if Yuuri hadn’t pushed him away. Yuuri lets out a low sob, wailing into his hands. This is all his fault, his his _his_.

Victor is going to die, and it’s all because of him.

He can’t just sit here and do nothing, knowing that no one else will help him. He can’t just sit back and let Victor _die_.

(Maybe he’s already dead. Maybe Yuuri is too late, and will spend the rest of his life knowing he was too late to save Victor.)

Is he supposed to stop Jack the Ripper himself?

(Jack will rip Victor’s throat, then he’ll slice him open while he’s still warm, his guts spilling over the ground like the cadavers Yuuri’s taken apart, Victor’s eyes wide and blue and forever frozen in terror.)

“Fuck,” Yuuri sobs, “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.”

He has to try. He has to. He can’t believe it’s hopeless, because if Victor is alive then he _needs_ him, and there’s no one else in all of London who cares enough to save him.

(What if he fails? What if he’s wrong? What if-)

_No_. Yuuri can’t think about that now. He gathers himself up, shaking, and stares at the letter once more.

If the letter is from Jack the Ripper, then he’s someone Yuuri’s at least distantly associated with – which means now the only thing left to do is figure out who Jack the Ripper is.

Every face of every suspect Yuuri had collected seems to mock him now. The pages swim together, Yuuri fighting off a panic attack with each breath as he rushes to solve the case.

Someone who knows he knows Victor.

(Everyone, seemingly, in the medical school, and the faculty, and their friends knows he’s friends with Victor. Someone Victor knows might have seen them together and figured out who he is.)

(It could just be a prank.)

(Don’t think about that, don’t think about that, don’t think-)

Yuuri makes his way back to his dormitories. The clock is ticking, ticking, ticking.

(Victor could already be dead.)

He slams the doors to the lounge area open – it’s crowded, the omegas all together to socialize on a Friday night, drinking the things they’ve snuck in past the matron and playing cards and reading books.

“Hello,” Yuuri calls, fighting back his embarrassment as everyone looks up at him quizzically. “Hello. Um. Pardon me, but have any of you seen anyone out of place here tonight? Better yet, someone who slipped a letter under my door?”

No one responds. A few people turn back to their books, their games. Others twitter to each other, and Yuuri tries to ignore the sting of humiliation. Victor needs him, he needs someone to protect him. If no one’s seen anything, he’s truly got nothing to go on.

Panic is a constant presence in the back of his mind, an ever-present tightness in his chest.

_Minako says, “Steady hands, Yuuri. Once I make the first incision, we’re working against shock and blood loss and time. I need you to be ready. I need you to make sure this patient lives at least for another day. Can you do that for me?”_

_The alpha on the table was wounded when his cart collapsed on his leg. The bone sticks out from the flesh, the smell of blood is thick in the summer air. _

_Yuuri swallows. He forces his hands to go steady. _

_He nods._

There’s a group of omegas by a bookshelf. They keep looking to him, then looking at each other, then giggling. Anger burns stronger than the humiliation, and he stalks over to them, snapping, “I see you all laughing. You either know something you’re not saying or you’re making fun of me, and you’d better tell me which it is. I’m not here to play games.”

_Someone’s life is on the line_, he doesn’t say.

One of the omegas looks a little taken aback. He looks to his fellows and says, timidly, “I was just telling them, I mean. You always look so lonely, so when an alpha said he was an admirer and he had a letter for you...”

“Who was it? What did he look like?” Yuuri says, pulse quickening.

The other omega bites his lip. “He was all bundled up. He stopped me outside and asked me to give it to you. I didn’t see his face. I think he had brown hair.”

Yuuri can’t bite back the cry of despair. That gives him nothing, _nothing_ to go on.

“What else?” Yuuri pleads, surging forward to take the omega’s hand pleadingly, “Please, please, there must have been something. What did his voice sound like? Did he give a name? Anything, _anything_.”

“I remember thinking you could do much better,” the omega lets out a half hysterical giggle, looking to his friends for some reassurance. One of them shrugs at him with wide eyes. “He um. He smelled _awful_.”

Yuuri seizes on that with a _frenzy._ “What do you mean? How did he smell?”

“Um, why are you-”

“Please just answer,” Yuuri pleads, trying and failing to keep the irritation out of his voice.

One of the others sniffs in offense, but Yuuri can’t think about that now.

“Please,” Yuuri says again.

“You know I don’t… I don’t know,” the omega says, blinking. “Not like an unwashed person. Not like an animal. It sort of… Burned my nose? It burned my nose, but it was kind of sweet. Sweet, but chemical.”

Sweet, but chemical. What on earth could that be? Yuuri bites his lip so hard it bleeds. Sweet, but chemical.

There was a cloth in Victor’s apartment. One that wasn’t Victor’s. Sweet, but chemical, and creates an artificial state of unconsciousness-

“Ether,” Yuuri breathes. Already relief flutters in his chest. “Thank you, thank you.”

It’s crude, but it would have been easy to get behind Victor with a cloth soaked in ether, to force him to breathe it in.

Someone who knows where the omega’s dorms are, who smelled like ether.

One more clue, maybe an even better chance of saving Victor.

Yuuri can barely dare to hope.

“That narrowed it down to _my entire class_, and then some,” Yuuri hisses to himself on the way to the medical college. The blood roars in his ears like a steam engine, a constant alarm reminding him of what’s at stake if he fails.

(Victor lying on the ground, all that’s left of his pretty face are his eyes, staring up at Yuuri with the terror of the last moments of his life.

Celestino laughs and holds him up for the class, saying, _can anyone tell me how Yuuri failed to save him?_)

There is no indication at all that anyone’s in the main buildings. Yuuri can’t think about that, can’t think that he might be completely off course.

When he goes to open the door to the anatomy practicals room, his nails release from his tightly clenched fist, and Yuuri gasps at the pain from the marks they’ve left in his palm.

Smelled strongly of ether. He must have used ether to knock Victor out, and where would he get a supply of it if not the medical college? It’s used routinely as an anesthetic for surgery. It’s not like it’s something people just have laying around – no, Jack must have gotten it from a hospital or medical school somewhere.

Yuuri pores through where he knows the ether stores are kept.

It’s locked.

Yuuri whimpers. Either he’s wrong, completely off base, or whoever took the chemical locked the door behind him.

It has to be the latter, because if it’s the former, Yuuri will regret it for the rest of his life.

Yuuri shatters the window of the store rooms with a chair, shirt catching on the broken glass as he unlocks the door from the inside.

Where could Jack go to dissect a body where he’d be sure he wouldn’t be disturbed?

(What if Yuuri’s wrong and he’s back in the east end, so far from here.)

Yuuri pauses, blood roaring in his ears. How did Jack get Victor from the east end back here? Yuuri knows from the mess in his apartment that he was knocked out there.

“Fuck,” Yuuri hisses again. “Fuck, oh my god, _fuck_.”

Each answer he finds just comes with more questions.

Yuuri’s hands shake so violently that he knocks over a glass bottle from a shelf, and it falls to the floor with an ear-splitting _crash_, shattering across the wood.

A vile, sour smell wafts upwards, and Yuuri _shrieks_ and scrambles back. Sulfuric acid.

It’s dark in here, the only light coming from the street lamps outside and the little lantern Yuuri’s perched on the table. Yuuri can’t see the lines of where the liquid is flowing, so he runs, he scrambles to the edge of the room.

The scent is awful, burning and sour, but Yuuri searches on through the chemical stores to see if the ether is missing and – ah!

There’s a ring of crusted scum in a space where a bottle once stood.

He was right,

Who has a key to the storage rooms this late at night?

Yuuri’s heart pounds. He feels as though he’s on the precipice of an answer.

His head throbs.

The reek of acid is too much in the small room, and Yuuri gags on it as he stumbles toward the exit. It’s sour, pungent. It makes the hairs of his nostrils curl and burn.

So, what? What has he learned?

He knew that Jack used ether. He _knew_, or at least suspected, that Jack was a part of the medical college. What does this _help_?

Each second he wastes unable to reach a conclusion is a second that Victor doesn’t have.

Oh _god_.

Tears bead at the corners of Yuuri’s eyes. His breath comes in short gasps, his head throbs from the fuming acid spilled throughout the room.

He’s never going to figure this out, and Victor will die, he’ll suffer and die and it’s all Yuuri’s fault-

“_Yuuri, focus. Your panic won’t help the patient. Stem the flow of blood, apply a bit more antiseptic. You’ve been doing your reading, correct? You know this. You know what you need to do to help him, right?”_

“_Yes, Minako. I know I need-”_

“Who would have a key to the campus at this time of night?” Yuuri breathes, heart thundering in his chest.

It’s not a custodian. They likely wouldn’t know how to properly use ether.

Who else has keys? Faculty, staff, anyone who might be performing an operation late into the night.

It’s not a student, then.

_Maybe it is Doctor Berger_, Yuuri thinks bitterly. _Could it… Could it be Professor Cialdini? Could it be…?_

_But how in the _hell _did they get his body out of his apartment without anyone noticing_.

Victor’s face pops up in Yuuri’s head, his musical laughter. Him shrugging, saying, “Maybe he’s a cop.”

But no, no, that can’t be right. Why would a cop know what ether is, much less how to use it? Even a cop would look suspicious carrying around an unconscious body through London.

A cop wouldn’t be able to access the stores of ether at the medical school.

Fuck, _fuck_.

Yuuri lets out a furious, terrified cry and slams his fist into the wall.

Something cracks, a joint popping, and Yuuri bites his lip so hard it bleeds to stifle his shriek of pain. His knuckles throb.

Yuuri sinks to the ground with a sob, beating his fists into the ground again and again, sobbing, “Think, damn you, _think_.”

There must be a list of people with signed out keys somewhere. There _must _be – maybe something will come to Yuuri, some stroke of inspiration.

He’s missing something.

He’s missing something, and every second he can’t grasp it is another where Jack could be ripping Victor apart, his knife deep in Victor’s soft belly-

“Stop,” Yuuri sobs, gripping his hair so tight he can feel a few strands rip from his skull, “Stop, stop, no, he’ll be fine, please, he has to be okay-”

He feels _sick_.

Yuuri thinks of the moments he spent with Victor, the secrets Victor shared with him in the cold morning light, dry eyed and steady and so, so brave. Sliding the sleeve of his thin sleep shirt up where it had fallen over his shoulder, taking Victor’s cheek in his hands as he spoke.

The world had been cruel to him, to them, and Yuuri is seized with how strongly Victor doesn’t deserve to die. Yuuri wants only happiness for him, after everything-

And now he’s responsible for the worst cruelty of Victor’s life.

(It’s his fault, if Victor dies it’ll be his fault, the blame will eat him alive and spit out his mangled remains and he’s going to fail the person he cares about more than anything in this world-)

“_We’re working against time, Yuuri,” Minako repeats as she makes the incisions into the meat of the thigh. The alpha breathes in and out, asleep and pain-free, the sweet, pungent sting of ether in the air._

“_Yes,” Yuuri nods, sweat dripping down his brow. Minako cuts the flesh with precision, and Yuuri marvels in the beauty of it, clamping the artery in the alpha’s leg down tight with a metal tool. “I’m not afraid, not when I’m helping you.”_

_It’s frightening, watching the alpha’s leg be taken apart, but Yuuri knows that this unpleasantness is necessary to save a man’s life. _

“_I won’t be with you forever,” Minako says, in her cryptic way. _

“_I know,” Yuuri says, trying to sound braver than he feels. _

“_When you’re in London, and all the time after, I need you to remember how confident you feel when you’re helping people. It’s not me, you know, it’s because you feel so strongly that you can save a life.”_

“_And then I’m devastated when I can’t,” Yuuri mutters, looking to the side in shame._

_Minako smiles sadly. “That’s just the way of it, I’m afraid. But so long as there’s a chance, I know you’ll never give up. When I’m not with you, hold onto that.”_

Yuuri sobs, shaking his head miserably. Minako was wrong about him. He’s nothing, _nothing, _he scares away anyone who could care for him, he can’t save anyone, he couldn’t save himself.

“_Yuuri,” Minako nods, “I want you to saw the bone off.”_

_Yuuri jolts in fear. A part of him wants to refuse, to say no, Minako, what if I do it wrong, what if I’m the reason this man dies-_

_But he steadies himself, takes a deep breath, and nods. His hands are slippery with blood as he passes the clamp to Minako, and he wipes them perfunctorily on a damp cloth before picking up the saw. They’re steady – they don’t shake._

_Minako smiles at him. Yuuri thinks, I can do this. _

In Yuuri’s mind, he’s in Victor’s apartment. Victor looks lovely in the golden evening glow, his hair in a braid, his lashes silver with no makeup on them. He drinks a cup of tea, lips pink against the rim of his cup, and Yuuri feels calm and secure.

Victor talks to him about Jack, back when he still would, sighing in resignation – like he’s just accepted that this is what his life will be like forever.

Victor says, “Ever since they’ve introduced ambulances at local hospitals, I swear I see one down here every other day.”

Yuuri’s eyes fly open.

_An ambulance_.

But, Yakov, Yakov would have seen Jack take Victor away-

No, Yuuri realizes, a slow dawning horror. No. Yakov wouldn’t have seen anything, because Yakov would have been at services and then dinner for hours.

No one would have noticed the body being taken away because death and injury are tragic and common in the east end. Jack wasn’t necessarily a cop, but no one would have noticed the London police force’s attending surgeon moving about throughout the night when Catherine Eddowes and Elizabeth Stride were killed.

Yuuri’s heart pounds, the sound ringing in his ears. There’s one person he can think of, someone he knows quite well, who works with the medical college and with the police-

Who would have access to an ambulance and a key to the ether and the ability to use any of the rooms in the medical college late into the night-

Who also, in passing, seemed very eager to know that Yuuri would not be seeing Victor on this particular Friday evening.

“It can’t be,” Yuuri stammers, “It can’t – but who else, _who else?_”

(If Yuuri is wrong, then Victor will die. If he misinterpreted the clues, or made an assumption he couldn’t make, then late tonight they will find Victor’s body and Yuuri won’t know until he sees him in the newspaper, dead dead _dead._)

James Hastings has his own office not too far from campus, where he attends to the bodies brought into his morgue.

Yuuri has to try, he has to have _hope_.

Victor’s life depends on it.

“What brings you to my morgue at this hour, Yuuri Katsuki?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hahahahahahaha im a little sorry, you know it's gonna have a happy ending so i gotta keep the tension alive somehow
> 
> this was so fucking hard you guys, i hope the clues lined up ok. obviously james' attitude was shitty which tipped most readers off, but i needed some in-story evidence for how yuuri was gonna figure it out. also, i have no idea if people called cops "pigs" in the victorian era but i needed to show how angry yuuri was sdlfghlsdfjk


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sdlfkghsdklfjgh you may have noticed that the number of chapters has gone up again. that's because i'm gay and can't count

“I knew you were too smart for your own good,” James snarls, dragging Yuuri along by the hair. “I tried to throw you off the trail, I thought you’d just accept that I knew more, but you’re _too damn smart_.”

Blood drips from Yuuri’s nose, which throbs and throbs with pain. He whimpers and grips James by the wrist, trying to loosen his grasp, but it’s no good. His adrenaline stores are wearing off and now he’s just trembling, and terrified, and yes he was _right_ but now how will they both survive this?

He tried to fight James, but he was scared, and shaking, and James beat him with his fists until Yuuri could hardly think. His glasses are on the floor by the door, and now Yuuri can barely see, the morgue just a blur of low lights and shadows and sounds.

“Sit,” James hisses, tossing him towards a nearby chair, and Yuuri has no choice but to do as he commands.

There’s a lumpy beige mass on the operating table.

Yuuri’s heart leaps to his throat, imagining a broken, mangled body beneath it, even though he knows he heard Victor screaming just as James knocked him over the head-

James rips away the canvas, and Yuuri’s heart breaks.

Victor whimpers, flinching so violently Yuuri can see it even without his glasses. The blues of his eyes shine, glassy with tears, his body tied to the table and splayed out like the cadavers Yuuri’s dissected.

“It’s alright,” James mutters to himself, puttering about by the table of surgical tools, “It’s alright. I’m _Jack the Ripper_, this will all be fine. No one will know.”

Victor whimpers again. Yuuri can’t take his eyes from, him, tears welling up and falling down his cheeks. He can smell Victor’s fear, his sour distress. Every nerve in his body screams at Yuuri to do something, _anything_, but his head hurts so badly and he can’t fucking _see_.

_I’m sorry, _Yuuri thinks, breath hitching, _I’m sorry, I got so close to saving you_.

Yuuri reaches his hand out, desperate to wipe the tears from Victor’s eyes, to comfort him-

James throws a glass bottle at Yuuri, and Yuuri _shrieks_ as he flinches back to avoid being hit by it.

Glass shatters somewhere to Yuuri’s left, and suddenly James is there, grabbing him, shaking him so violently it makes the pounding in his head so much worst.

“Don’t touch him,” James screams, pressing the sharp blade of the scalpel to the pulsing artery at his neck. “If you want to survive the night, you’ll not move a muscle without my saying so. Understood?”

Victor whimpers again, sobbing behind the gag in his mouth. Yuuri can’t bear to listen to him, to the terrified sounds coming from the back of his throat. It hurts, it hurts to hear him in such pain.

Yuuri stares up into James’ hateful eyes, swallowing, and feels the slight bite of the knife against his skin.

“Please,” Yuuri pleads, “Please, let him go-”

James slaps him, sending him sprawling from the chair and onto the hard floor. Victor sobs even louder, shaking his head, writhing on the table, and Yuuri whimpers in pain and terror, struggling to his hands and knees.

He breathes, there, gritting his teeth and closing his eyes to steady himself.

“You have no intention of letting me survive the night,” he sobs, tears dripping between his palms on the wooden floor. “But you don’t have to kill us both. Victor doesn’t deserve to die. He won’t tell anyone, and you know no one will listen to him. So, please-”

James grabs him again, tossing him about like a ragdoll, back onto the chair. Yuuri gasps for breath, so deeply disoriented, scrambling against James’s fists clenched into the collar of his jacket. The tip of the scalpel, clenched in James’s fists as well, brushes Yuuri’s cheek.

“But I don’t hate you,” James breathes, breath hot and wet against Yuuri’s lips. It makes Yuuri want to gag, the proximity, the scent of hatred against his tongue. “I don’t want to kill you. I thought I could save you from him.”

Tears flow down Yuuri’s cheeks, and his breath hitches as he says, “But I don’t want you to save me from him. He makes me so, so happy.”

“He’s a _whore_,” James screams, saliva flying from his lips and splattering on Yuuri’s cheek. “What he does is unforgivable. How can you be alright with him? Him putting his filthy hands on those alphas. I ought to open him up for you – I bet his liver looks just like young Mary’s. His body will kill him if I don’t, and he’ll deserve it.”

Yuuri shakes his head, weeping. “He’s a good person, James.”

“He’s _not_,” James shrieks, shaking Yuuri again, “He’s not, he’s not, he’s _not_. You stupid omega, you’ll see, he’s rotten on the inside just like the rest of them.” His hand gripping the scalpel slides down Yuuri’s chest, painfully slowly, until it sits just below where Yuuri’s breastbone. “Maybe just like you.”

If James manages to pierce through the layers of fabric and corsetry, the blade will go right into the bare, fleshy part of his abdomen. Yuuri whimpers, the sound mixing with Victor’s crying, the creak of the table as he moves.

“Oh, shut up,” James snaps at Victor, stalking up to grab his jaw and squeeze so hard that Victor’s whimpers grow high pitched, pained. “Do you hear me? Shut _up_. It’s your fault Yuuri is in this mess, you bitch. It’s _your fault_ he’s going to die tonight. Don’t worry though, sweet thing, you’ll be dead before he is. You won’t have to see it happen.”

Victor shakes his head, whimpering. His fists clench and unclench.

“Victor,” Yuuri murmurs, and Victor’s eyes snap to him, though James still holds his jaw steady. “Look at me, Victor. It’ll all be alright.”

Victor’s eyes widen, full of unshed tears.

James laughs outright, the sound terrible and mocking.

“Up, Yuuri,” he continues to laugh, “That’s enough of that. I’m going to have you set up the camera to document what I’m doing here. Don’t try to run, you know I’ll always catch you.”

James winks at him.

Yuuri takes a deep breath.

“I won’t,” he says.

James blinks. “What did you say?”

Yuuri repeats, trembling with fear, “I won’t. I won’t do anything you tell me to.”

James’s voice quakes with rage as he says, “If you don’t, I won’t kill you quickly. You’ll die slow, my knife in your belly. Do you know how many organs I can take out before you go into shock? It’ll take a long, long time, Yuuri Katsuki.”

“I don’t care,” Yuuri snarls. “I won’t.”

James slides the knife down Victor’s body, to his belly button, pressing it in just enough that blood beads up around it and Victor lets out a low, pained whimper.

Victor’s hand is moving, out of the line of James’s vision. It wriggles, and writhes, and strains against the ropes binding him to the table. Yuuri’s gaze flits to it, then to Victor’s eyes, his brow furrowed in determination.

He hasn’t given up.

Yuuri won’t either.

“What about him, then?” James murmurs, pressing just a little bit deeper.

“Stop,” Yuuri breathes, the sound of Victor’s hitched breathing biting into him like a physical pain, “Stop.”

“If you don’t do what I say, it’ll be slow for him,” James continues, eyes glittering with fury. “I’ll cut him open first. I’ll take out his stomach while you watch. His intestines, writhing and alive – you’ve seen that, I bet, seen how they wriggle like eels, and I’ll slice them open like I’m gutting an eel.”

“You’re sick,” Yuuri whispers. Victor’s hand is still moving. Yuuri tries so hard not to look at it, to focus on the white-lipped fury of James ahead of him. “How can you claim to be better than Victor, talking like this?”

Think, Yuuri thinks desperately, think, this can’t be the end, it can’t be.

James’s face contorts in rage, and Yuuri’s heart drops. He shouldn’t have said that, he’s just made it worse, he’s going to slice into Victor’s stomach and tear him apart-

“You little bitch,” James roars grabbing Yuuri again, pressing the scalpel to his cheek. Pain stings against his skin as the blade cuts into him, a thin red line of blood dripping down his cheek. “How dare you, how _dare_ you. How about I stick my knife into him, hmm, right between his legs? Would you like to see that, Yuuri Katsuki, see him squeal like a pig in heat as I rip him that way? I never have before, but it’ll be fun, won’t it-”

_Crash_.

James whirls around to where a glass jar has shattered onto the floor, and Yuuri knows that Victor has gotten his hand free, and Victor threw it, and now Yuuri needs to do _something_-

Yuuri tackles James, half blind, knocking them both to the floor. James roars, writhing beneath Yuuri, and Yuuri’s head throbs and he _can’t fucking see_.

There’s no time to think.

Yuuri punches down, hand connecting with the sharp bones of James’s cheek, and he’s already in pain but he can’t let that stop him-

James throws him off.

All the breath is knocked from him as his back collides with the operating table, and Yuuri scrambles to the side just as James lunges for him, his hands snagging in Yuuri’s long skirts.

Yuuri kicks, and the sharp crack of bone is a sign that he’s hit his target.

He has to draw James away from Victor. If James can use Victor as leverage against him, it’s over.

(James beat him back once, and now he’s injured, and half-blind, and panicked. He’ll never win, not like this, when James has a knife and his full strength. He’s going to fail, and now they’re both going to die, and-)

James scrambles to his feet, lunging after Yuuri like a rabid dog.

There’s the crunch of glass beneath Yuuri’s feet, and he gasps, thinking, if he can just knock James off his balance-

Yuuri reaches for something, anything, to beat James back with. There’s a book on a nearby table, and he strikes out, and James falls back onto the shards of broken jar with a howl.

“You _bitch_,” he shrieks in pain, the shards going right into his hands, the hands of a surgeon, of Jack the Ripper.

Blood drips out of them, bright red splotches against pale white, distracting enough that Yuuri doesn’t react nearly fast enough to stop James from pinning him up against the wall, glass shards still in his hands, his hands slick with blood and closing around Yuuri’s neck.

Victor is sobbing again, scrambling with bloody nails to undo his other bindings, not even bothering with the gag in his mouth as he fights with the ropes pinning him down.

The glass burns as it grazes Yuuri’s neck, burning as hot as the fury in James’s bloodshot eyes. He’d thought the glass was a good idea, but he’s just made it worse.

Yuuri’s lungs burn as he tries to breathe in, slow sips of air blocked by James’ hands.

“Please,” he croaks.

“I guess Victor will have to watch you die first,” James snarls.

Yuuri’s hands shoot out, scrambling for purchase against James’ slippery fingers, and his head knocks back against the shelf of glass bottles. He reaches out, back, fingers writhing and vision going black.

Liquid drips from one of the bottles and a sour smell wafts up from it.

Yuuri’s eyes go wide. He reaches back, back, gripping the slippery bottle while James chokes the life from him-

And brings it crashing down on Jack’s head.

The sour reek of carbolic acid fills the room. Jack howls in pain, the acid pouring over a dozen stinging cuts. Splatter from the acid lightens the color of Yuuri’s sleeves in splotches, and the scent makes his eyes water and sting.

James staggers away from him, slashing out wildly with the scalpel.

Yuuri ducks, just barely able to avoid the blade, coughing and gagging and trying so hard to breathe but his neck hurts and his throat feels crushed between James’ hands.

There’s no time to think.

He’s in a race against time.

Yuuri picks up the chair with all his strength and brings it straight down onto James’ head. James stumbles to the ground, still snarling, still writhing-

Yuuri hits him with the chair again, and again, and again again _again_ until James is no longer moving, no longer snarling, and the only sounds that are left are Victor’s whimpering and the drip of acid on the floor.

He drops the chair, gasping until his lungs can get enough air, dropping to his knees beside Victor on the table, gripping the edge of it so hard his knuckles go white, panting. A warm, trembling hand closes over his, and he shoots up so quickly his knees pop.

“Victor,” Yuuri gasps, “Victor...”

Victor makes a muffled sound, and Yuuri grabs another knife from the table, fumbling around like a newborn. Victor flinches beneath Yuuri’s touch as he lifts it up, but calms as Yuuri slices open the ropes at his wrists and ankles.

“It’s alright,” Yuuri croaks, hands shaking, blood dripping down his neck and throat. “It’s-”

Victor wails and wraps his bare arms around Yuuri, clinging to him and burying his face in his neck. Yuuri’s trembling fingers struggle with the knot of his gag, but eventually it falls away.

“Yuuri,” Victor sobs, “Yuuri, Yuuri, Yuuri-”

“Victor,” Yuuri gasps, fingers digging into Victor’s shoulder blades, slick with cold sweat.

“You came for me,” Victor wails, “You – I thought, oh _Yuuri_.”

He sobs, big, childlike cries. Yuuri’s eyes fill with tears too, dripping down onto Victor’s naked shoulder, and he kisses the crook of Victor’s neck, tasting his skin like he’s never wanted anything more.

“We have to leave,” Yuuri stammers, “I don’t know if he’s dead, we have to, the police-”

Yuuri wraps the canvas around Victor’s shoulders, brushing a sweaty strand of hair from Victor’s eyes. He can see Victor’s face, this close. His eyes are swollen and red, the blue just barely peeking out from underneath his eyelids. Mucous is crusted on his cupid’s bow, his lips are bright red, irritated from the gag.

His whole body shakes, and when he steps down from the operating table, his legs collapse beneath him like a newborn lamb.

“It’s alright,” Yuuri repeats, “It’s alright.”

He lifts Victor from the waist, Victor falling to lean on Yuuri’s aching body. It hurts, but Yuuri would take this pain forever if it meant they were safe from Jack the Ripper.

“I’ll help you,” Yuuri murmurs as Victor takes one trembling step forward, then another, naked but for the scratchy canvas. “I’ll help you. I’ll never leave you again.”

“Yuuri,” Victor sobs, resting his whole body against Yuuri’s, “Oh, _Yuuri_.”

It all goes quickly after that.

The police officers think they’re drunk, at first, when they show up in the station raving about Jack the Ripper – Victor especially, who hasn’t stopped shaking in the entire time since Yuuri has found him, who is naked and keeps looking around the police station like a caged dog.

Their injuries, though – Yuuri’s bloody nose and cheek, Victor’s bruises – finally convince the police to bother taking a look in the medical buildings at all.

They find James there, still knocked out with a head injury, covered in acid burns but alive. He wakes in the hospital not long after he’s brought there.

In searching his apartment, they find all manner of paraphernalia related to the Ripper case – including photographs he’d taken of all the victims except Elizabeth Stride, whose body he’d fled before he had a chance to take that as a souvenir.

Victor is given clothing, though not without some leering from the officers, which makes Yuuri’s blood boil. _Hasn’t he been through enough?_ He thinks furiously, _Leave him be._

He _growls_ at some of the officers, which they seem to find funny – they seem to find the whole thing funny until James Hastings is awake, surrounded by the evidence of his crimes, confessing to all of them in a hospital bed surrounded by police.

“The omega actually bloody did it,” one of them shakes his head, shocked.

Chief of Police Plisetsky is called from his house in the middle of the night to attend to the situation. No one seems to know what to do with the most infamous killer in all of London without his guidance.

He huffs his way into the station at nearly two in the morning, buttoning an overcoat over top of his sleeping shirt. His nightcap is still on his head.

Victor rests his cheek on Yuuri’s shoulders, blinking slowly, sleepily, staring at nothing in particular. He hasn’t spoken since they escaped the operating room, hasn’t stopped shaking, hasn’t let go of Yuuri’s hand even for an instant.

Yuuri tells his story. When Victor tries to tell his, his voice wobbles and wavers before breaking entirely.

He buries his face in Yuuri’s neck, sobbing, “I can’t, I can’t,” while Yuuri tries desperately to soothe him. He shakes so hard his whole body convulses, his breathing ragged and terrified.

“We’ll leave you for a moment,” Nicolai Plisetsky says. There’s something about him that reminds Yuuri of Yakov, his gruffness, his grizzled expression.

Victor cries, and cries, and cries. Yuuri holds him the entire time, guilt eating away at him like a parasite. This is his fault, his fault. If he hadn’t been so stupid, been such a coward…

Yuuri remembers being rocked back and forth by his mother, her soft arms always smelling like some kind of food. He sings to Victor the songs she used to sing to him, lips pressed against his ear.

He’s so full of love for Victor, his heart feels like it might burst. He’d do anything to keep Victor safe.

Yuuri tilts up Victor’s chin and kisses him, his lips tasting like blood and tears.

Victor kisses him back, lips moving. Yuuri has no idea what to do. He’s never initiated a kiss before. He just tries to match the motion of Victor’s lips until he has to pull back to breathe, staring into Victor’s tear-swollen eyes.

“Let me guess,” Victor whispers, tears beading in his eyes again, “You don’t know what to do when people cry in front of you, either.”

“No,” Yuuri says, blinking owlishly. “Victor, I love you.”

Victor’s eyes go very, very wide, and an apology teeters on the edge of Yuuri’s tongue. It wasn’t the right time, he should have waited, he should focus on Victor’s feelings now-

And then Victor kisses him again, still crying, the tears falling onto his lips and into Yuuri’s mouth. Yuuri thinks that this is saltier than most kisses are, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except that Victor is alive.

Victor stops kissing him at some point, but he leans in close, still letting Yuuri hold him and comfort him.

Nicolai Plisetsky comes in later, sits down in front of them without a word. If he’d seen them kissing earlier, he doesn’t say anything about it, just rifles through some papers.

“Please,” Yuuri pleads as Victor stiffens against him. “Can we go home?”

It’s been a long, long night. Yuuri just wants it to be over.

He still feels James’ hands over his throat.

When Nicolai leans forward, Yuuri starts, hands flying up in front of him.

Nicolai sighs. “Go home, you two. You’ve done well.” He looks to Victor, who flinches and looks down. “Be safe, Victor.”

“I can’t go back,” Victor whispers, terrified. “I can’t.”

“You can come back with me,” Yuuri says, holding Victor tight. “My room, though, it’s not quite what you’d call luxurious.”

“I don’t care,” Victor whimpers. “I just want to stay with you.”

“Of course,” Yuuri breathes, kissing every inch of Victor’s face that isn’t covered in bruises. “Of course. You can stay with me as long as you need.”

It’s nearly dawn by the time Yuuri and Victor manage to make it back to his dorms. They have to sneak in through the back to avoid waking the headmistress, something Yuuri has done many, many times.

Yuuri undoes the eyelets in the ill-fitting corset Victor had gotten from the police, lets Victor’s clothes drop all around his ankles until he’s naked in Yuuri’s room.

Victor covers his face, shaking, not moving. He cries into his hands as Yuuri dabs little bits of antiseptic on the cuts across Victor’s stomach, kissing just around them as he does.

“Yuuri,” Victor pleads, eyes full of tears, “I’m so scared.”

Yuuri’s eyes fill with tears as well. He wraps his arms around Victor, sitting down on the bed, and rests his forehead against Victor’s bare stomach.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri pleads, “I’m so, so sorry Victor. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Yuuri wraps his blankets around Victor’s shoulder, holding him so tight he worries about jostling the bruises. He’s scared too, terrified. He feels like this is all his fault.

He peels off his outerlayers, strips down to his short-sleeved chemise, holding Victor’s naked body to him to feel his warmth. Gently, delicately, Yuuri brings his wrists to Victor’s wrists, his neck, his cheeks, spreading the scent of spring all over him.

Victor whimpers, nuzzling in even closer, and Yuuri lies back against his bed with Victor leaning against his chest. His breathing evens as Yuuri continues to scent him, holding his hands so that their wrists kiss.

Yuuri doesn’t know if he’ll sleep tonight, but that’s alright. For now, the weight and warmth of Victor’s body, alive and pumping with hot blood, is enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last chapter next week!!!! it's kind of an epilogue, congratulations on getting through all the cliffhangers hahahaha


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MAN WE'RE DONEEEEEEEEEE
> 
> thank you so much to those of you who read and left comments!!!! it's really been a ride and i hope you like the final chapter!!!

“_Can anyone tell me what’s happened here?”_ _Celestino holds up the torso, exposing the ripped flesh of its belly. It’s hollow inside, a gaping, cavernous mouth. The organs lie on the table, all of them covered in rotting pustules, hacked away from the body with a bloody butcher knife._

_Yuuri shakes his head, feeling ill. He’s never been shy about corpses, but there’s something about this. His classmates murmur to each other all around him, eyes flitting to him then the bloodless body on the table._

“_Another Ripper victim,” someone says, the voice coming from behind Yuuri._

_Celestino nods. “And how did he die?”_

“_Yuuri didn’t get to him in time,” the voice says again. _

_Yuuri starts. He stares at the body on the table, suddenly aware of the familiar curve of his hip with the black birthmark on it, which he’d seen accidentally one morning while watching Victor pull up his bloomers over his chemise. _

“_I,” Yuuri gasps, “No, I saved him. This is wrong.”_

“_You failed, Yuuri,” the voice comes again, and when Celestino tilts the corpse’s face up Yuuri sees its mouth move, though the face is ripped and bloody. All that’s left are the bright blue eyes, stricken in terror. “You sent me away and he killed me.”_

“_No,” Yuuri pleads, “No, no, I didn’t-”_

“_Yuuri,” the corpse moans, its eyes rolling back in its sockets, “Yuuri-”_

Yuuri jolts awake-

And finds himself staring into a pair of frightened, bright blue eyes.

Yuuri _screams._

He writhes away from the sight of those eyes, tumbling in a tangle of sheets out of his bed and falling with a painful _thump_ onto the wooden floor. All of his aches chime together in a chorus of pain, and Yuuri scrambles with the sheets at his neck, feeling them tightening like James’ hands around his throat.

“Yuuri!” Cries a voice from above him, “Yuuri, it’s alright-”

Someone rips the sheets away from him, wraps him in a loving embrace instead, and the sweet scent of cinnamon and ginger washes over him. Yuuri’s heartbeat slows, steadily, and his panic recedes, inhaling deeply as the night comes back to him.

That’s Victor behind him, Victor who is very much alive.

Yuuri whips around in Victor’s arms and takes his face in his hands, staring deeply into his blue eyes, which are concerned but not glassy and frozen in the last terrified moments of his life.

Victor blinks.

Yuuri bursts into tears.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri sobs, resting his forehead into Victor’s chest, “I’m so, so sorry. It was such a horrible dream.”

“It wasn’t a dream,” Victor murmurs, a shudder rippling through his whole body.

“No,” Yuuri gasps, “I dreamed I was too late. That I was in class, and it was you on the table.” He stares up into Victor’s eyes, every bruise and cut clear at this close a distance. “And it would have been all my fault. Victor, I’m so, so sorry. I’ll say I’m sorry a hundred times, every day I know you for the rest of my life, and I’ll never be free of the guilt of what I almost did to you. It would have been all my fault.”

His voice breaks again and he buries his face in Victor’s chest. He almost wishes that Victor would push him away, tell him that he’s furious with him, because at least he’d feel like he deserved that. He doesn’t want Victor to stay with him because Yuuri is his only friend – not when Yuuri hurt him so badly.

Victor is silent for a long moment, though his arms never stop rubbing Yuuri’s back.

When he finally speaks, he says, “Yuuri – what happened that made you send the letter to me?”

“What?” Yuuri stammers, wiping at his eyes and looking up into Victor’s unreadable face. “No – no, that doesn’t matter, I should never have pushed you away.”

“Yuuri,” Victor says, soft but unyielding, “What happened to you?”

Victor deserves honesty. So Yuuri tells him everything – he’d showed up in heat to Victor’s apartment, but never explained why, not truly. Fully. Coherently. He does, now – tells him about the heat, about how he couldn’t get an extension.

Haltingly, the memory still making the bile rise in his throat, he tells him about his conversation with Doctor Berger. Being yelled at, being pushed up against the wall, how Doctor Berger used Victor as a cudgel with which to beat him back.

Victor flinches when he hears Doctor Berger’s name. When Yuuri finishes, Victor whispers, “I hate him. I hate him so, so much.”

Then he holds Yuuri tight and kisses his forehead.

“I should never have yelled at you,” Victor whispers, “I pushed you away too, after he hurt you.”

“It doesn’t matter what he said,” Yuuri whimpers. “I shouldn’t have-”

“But it does matter,” Victor cuts him off. “It matters how he treated you.”

“I don’t know if I can go back,” Yuuri cries, “Not after that. I think of his face, I hear his voice in the back of my head, and I feel sick.”

“Perhaps they’ll treat you better once they learn who solved the Ripper case.”

Yuuri’s eyes fly open as the night comes back to him. “Oh my god,” he gags, hit with a sudden wave of nausea, “Oh, I’ve never come so close to dying before, I can still feel his hands on my throat. Victor, Victor – I was almost too late.”

Victor doesn’t respond again, not for a long time.

“I,” he tries, and his voice catches in his throat. “I’m so glad someone was finally there for me. I thought-”

He doesn’t finish. His eyes fill with tears, though, and Yuuri wipes them away with his thumbs, careful of the bruising.

“I don’t care what anyone says,” Yuuri hisses, kissing Victor’s trembling lips. “I won’t – I won’t leave you. Unless.” He swallows, looking down. “Unless, I’d understand if you hate me. If you want me to-”

“Don’t you dare finish that thought,” Victor snarls, “Not after kissing me like that. You make me so, so happy, and the first time I thought I’d lost that I felt as though my heart was split in two. You – Yuuri, you are so worried about your own worth that you can’t see how much other people want to be with you. How much I want to be with you.”

“Oh,” Yuuri says.

“It hurt so terribly to get your letter,” Victor sobs. “But you saved me. No one’s ever wanted to protect me.”

“I always want to protect you,” Yuuri breathes. “I’ll protect you as long as you let me.”

Tears drip down Victor’s cheeks. “You saved my life,” he says, voice thick with tears.

“Oh,” Yuuri says again.

“I want you to kiss me again,” Victor sniffles.

“I can do that,” Yuuri stammers, leaning forward with so much enthusiasm he bumps Victor’s bruised nose, and Victor hisses in pain. “Oh! Sorry, sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” Victor whispers.

Yuuri’s neck stings. His cheek stings. He feels raw, ragged – but at least Victor is safe. Kissing him like this, it’s easy to get lost in the sensation of his soft lips, his tongue, the way his teeth just barely graze Yuuri’s mouth. It’s easy to forget the horror of the night before, if only for a moment.

Yuuri nestles between Victor’s arms, listening to his thrumming heartbeat. The thump-thump of a beating heart, the warm tickle of breath against his ears, the gentle rise and fall of Victor’s chest – all signs that they’re both blessedly alive. Yuuri wants to drown in those sensations, let them wash over him until he’s no longer afraid.

At least, when he thinks of the night they stopped Jack the Ripper, it’ll be with Victor by his side.

There’s a knock on the apartment door.

Victor bolts up from where he’s lying on the couch, gripping his chest as though he’s in pain, a wild sort of fear in his eyes. They’re back at Victor’s apartment, where Yuuri plans to stay for the foreseeable future. It’ll be a while before classes start up again, before Yuuri has to figure out what to do, and he wants to spend every moment of it by Victor’s side.

Victor’s apartment is far nicer than his, anyway.

“It’s alright,” Yuuri soothes, going to peck Victor on the lips. “I’ll answer. You just lie back.”

“I’m,” Victor stammers, “I’m just, I mean, it’s the middle of the day, who would – I’m sure it’s fine.”

Yuuri knows very well what it’s like to be afraid like this. For him, the cold feeling will settle in his chest seemingly for no reason.

Kissing Victor does seem to help, though, for all their first kiss was because Victor didn’t know what to do because Yuuri was crying.

Yuuri opens the door.

Yakov stands there, looking more than a little frazzled.

“Ah,” he says, trying and failing to sound nonchalant. “Ah. I’d came to call earlier, but I suppose you were out.”

Yuuri nods, tentatively. He spares a glance back to Victor, who is staring fixedly at the ground, hands shaking. Victor bites his lip so hard it bleeds at the sound of Yakov’s voice.

“Yes,” Yuuri says, not moving to let Yakov through the door.

“I brought the candlesticks back,” Yakov continues, holding them out and looking disappointed when Yuuri takes them and not Victor. He shuffles from his left foot to his right, trying to edge past Yuuri. He wants to talk to Victor, but Yuuri doesn’t trust what he’ll say. From the expression on Victor’s face, he doesn’t trust him either.

Anger rushes through Yuuri, thinking of all the things Yakov had said to Victor when Victor was at his most vulnerable.

“Did you hear?” Yakov continues, a little louder. “They caught the man who called himself Jack the Ripper last night.”

“We know,” Yuuri says.

Victor’s eyes grow red and watery, and he whimpers from inside the apartment.

Yakov begins, “Victor-”

“Yakov,” Yuuri whispers, feeling the sting of guilt at the hurt expression on Yakov’s face. “Please. Not right now.”

“I,” Yakov says, his soft voice clashing oddly with his grizzled expression, “But – alright. I. If Victor needs anything, tell him.” He takes a deep breath, rubbing the back of his neck. “Tell him – well. You both know – nevermind.”

Yuuri nods, curtly, and shuts the door. He hopes that what he said made Yakov reconsider how he treats Victor. Once he finds out what happened, maybe Yakov will have some sympathy. Maybe Victor can have family beyond what his mother writes to him and Yuuri tries to give him.

“Are you alright?” Yuuri asks, kneeling in front of Victor.

Victor nods, wiping at his eyes and sniffling pitifully.

“I didn’t know what he would say to me,” he whispers.

Yuuri takes his hands, kissing his knuckles.

“I understand,” he murmurs.

“I just,” Victor bites his lip, looking away with tears in his eyes. “I just, I wanted him to care about me, but he’s so angry with me all the time. I didn’t want him to tell me it was my fault this happened.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Yuuri says, insistent. “It wasn’t.”

Victor shrugs like he doesn’t really believe him. Yuuri dabs at his eyes with a handkerchief. Every time he meets Victor’s gaze now, he thinks of the nightmare he had, them open wide and dead, no light of life shimmering in them.

He shudders.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Yuuri says again, wondering if he’ll ever believe it wasn’t _his_ fault, either.

“If you’re interested,” Nicolai Plisetsky says, taking a puff of tobacco from his pipe. “One of our detectives recently retired. I think you’d be a fine addition to the team.”

They’re at a cafe on a bustling street, people all around with their faces buried in newspapers proclaiming that Jack the Ripper has been caught. If Yuuri didn’t know better, he’d say they almost seemed disappointed that the months of spectacle are coming to an end.

“You’re being awfully generous,” Yuuri murmurs, “I’ve only done this one little thing. You have no idea if I could help you again.”

“One little thing?” Nicolai says incredulously, “Yuuri, you solved the Jack the Ripper case. This case has been the bane of my existence for months now, and in one night, you just… You solved it.”

Yuuri flushes. “Well, I had some help. He decided to be arrogant and give me that letter. And I just… I kept thinking, there was so much that Victor had told me that put me on the right track.”

Nicolai shakes his head. “But you put it all together.”

“Even if I did,” Yuuri says, tilting his head in suspicion. “I don’t know why you’re offering me this. Surely there must be others. Alphas, perhaps. You must know what my secondary gender is.”

Nicolai takes a long drag from the pipe and blows the acrid tobacco into the cold winter morning. He looks side to side, sheepishly, before saying in a voice far quieter than Yuuri ever believed him capable of, “I thought this case would be the end of me. I don’t know if you were aware, but I’m the first Jewish chief of police in all of London’s history, and certainly there were those who would have loved to see me fail. I worked hard, though, apprehended more criminals than any of my predecessors, and spent long nights at the office when all I wanted was to be at home with my grandson.”

Yuuri nods.

“I was ready to retire with accolades,” Nicolai continues, “And then came Jack the Ripper. It, well, I’ll spare you the details, but it nearly destroyed me. Every ounce of respect I’d gotten disappeared the longer he went uncaught. Then, when Kosminski became a suspect, when vigilante groups attacked Jewish businesses – I thought I’d made progress in the department, and it was gone in an instant. So I want to do something for you, Yuuri Katsuki, to thank you for what you’ve done for me personally.”

In that moment, Yuuri feels a rush of understanding for Nicolai. He thinks of what he must’ve needed to do, the things he needed to swallow down without complaint, to get where he is now. He’s made life so much harder for Victor, though, in his quest. He’s made things better for himself, but what about the rest of the lower classes of London society?

“If I come work for you,” Yuuri points out suspiciously, “Then you get to claim a member of your forces solved the case, where now the credit goes to an anonymous bystander.”

Nicolai chuckles good naturedly. “You’re smart, Yuuri. You’re correct, it’s not entirely altruism that’s making me want to offer this to you specifically. After everything, I think I deserve a bit of good press.” He meets Yuuri’s gaze levelly. “That being said, this just makes me even more confident that you’d be a wonderful detective – and I meant what I said.”

Yuuri bites his lip. At least Nicolai was honest, he supposes.

“I’d make sure things were alright for you,” Nicolai continues. “As an omega, that is. As someone not born in this country.”

All the thoughts swirling in his head just make him feel dazed and confused. The thought of going back to his particular medical school makes him feel nauseous. No matter the grades he got on his exams, he truly doesn’t think he can put up with another semester with Doctor Berger and his cruel classmates.

He loves medicine. He loved the feeling of helping a patient, even the gritty, gory details of it. The people he helped would always show up to Minako’s office with gifts, tears in their eyes to thank her, sometimes both of them for saving their mother or brother or husband.

It’s terrible watching people die, but knowing how things are changing every day to make surgery easier, to make survival rates go up – if he can be a part of that, why shouldn’t he?

He could help people by solving cases too. But…

“I know that the police department made things very difficult for Victor,” Yuuri says, slowly. “I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable working for you, considering that.”

Nicolai blinks in surprise. “You know he’s a prostitute, right? He’s breaking the law.”

“I wish the law had more empathy for him,” Yuuri bites back. “You, Yakov – where were you back when he needed the help from his community the most? I know – I know it was hard for you as the first Jewish chief of police, I really do. I understand that. But I also know you used the power you had to make the lives of other vulnerable people harder. Victor is just as Jewish as you, and he deserves your sympathy, not your derision.”

Nicolai shakes his head. His expression is unreadable, but he remains pleasant as he says, “Well, I won’t force you to do anything. If all you want is my personal thanks, that’s quite alright with me.”

He turns to leave.

“I liked solving the case,” Yuuri blurts out.

Nicolai turns back towards him, eyebrows raised.

“I liked,” Yuuri says, “I liked it. Not the last bit, because I was so scared for Victor, but I used to try to put the clues together in my spare time. If I could do that again...”

Nicolai tips his hat. “Just tell me what you want, Yuuri. Think it over. You know where to find me when you do make your decision.”

Victor wrote to his mama this morning, asking her to come to London.

He sighs, curled up in his bed, Yuuri’s breath tickling the back of his neck as he sleeps.

It’s been a few days now, since Victor was taken by Jack the Ripper. A few days since he nearly died, terrified and alone, strapped to an operating table in the middle of the night.

His bruises have gone from purple to an exceedingly ugly yellow-green. It reminds him of vomit every time he sees them – but Yuuri assures him this is a normal part of the healing process. Victor doesn’t have the heart to tell him he knows, that he’s been bruised before, because Yuuri seems to want to help at every opportunity.

He has personally applied stinging antiseptic to the small cut along Victor’s belly, where Jack pressed the knife in, when Victor truly thought for a few moments of sheer, unrelenting terror that he might die. When Victor tries to do the same to him, Yuuri waves him off in embarrassment, telling him he should rest.

Yuuri still feels guilty, Victor knows, and Victor – he doesn’t really know exactly what he feels. The moments before Yuuri showed up, when Victor truly thought he was alone in the world, were nearly unendurable – but Victor wasn’t alone, and Yuuri came to save him.

Yuuri made a hurtful decision because he’d been hurt so terribly by his own classmates. It wound up with Victor suffering more than Yuuri ever intended.

Victor loves Yuuri, he knows this. He also knows Yuuri is doing his best to make up for it. Victor wonders, too, if there was something he could have done, or said, to stop Yuuri from running away from him. Maybe if he hadn’t reacted so angrily…

Maybe this is truly his fault…

“Mm, Vitya, are you awake?”

Victor flushes beet red. He’d wanted Yuuri to call him Vitya for so long, and now every time he does, he feels like a lovestruck teenager again. A bunch of flowers or a walk in the meadow and he’s ready to pledge his life to Yuuri.

“I am,” Victor says.

In truth, he hasn’t been sleeping well lately. He closes his eyes and sees Jack’s – James’ - hateful eyes and it brings back every terrible thing he felt before Yuuri came to save him.

Yuuri snakes one arm beneath the curve of Victor’s neck, the other under his armpit, grasping at the fabric of his nightdress over his chest. Victor grasps that hand while Yuuri’s other curves back to caress his cheek.

“Sometimes I dream I’ve lost you,” Yuuri mumbles sleepily, lips pressed to the nape of Victor’s neck, right beside his scent gland. “I don’t want to close my eyes because I’m scared I’ll forget you’re with me.”

“I dream of him too,” Victor shudders.

“I wish I could go into your dreams,” Yuuri says, “And fight him off.”

Victor brings Yuuri’s hand up to his lips and kisses it. “You’ve already done that in reality. You don’t need to protect me in my dreams too.”

“Wan’ to,” Yuuri mumbles stubbornly, yawning.

Victor’s heart swells. He feels so safe with Yuuri, loves the comfort of his arms and his body pressed against him. Mama used to tell him that if he stayed with her, he could marry any alpha he wanted in their village. The richest, the most powerful, any.

He never wanted them.

Yuuri – that’s who he wants.

Victor rolls around so they’re face to face, and he cups Yuuri’s cheek, his hand sliding down to his shoulder, thumb running under the strap of his cotton nightdress.

Yuuri’s hair is in a loose braid, the way he likes to wear it at night. Now that Yuuri is living with him, they braid each other’s hair before retiring to bed, dressed in nothing but their nightdresses and sometimes nothing at all, fresh from the bath.

Victor feels a strange need to be naked around Yuuri, as though he’s trying to erase the fact that the first time Yuuri saw him completely undressed was strapped to an operating table, about to die.

“It’s almost like we’re married, isn’t it?” Victor murmurs, trying to shake the thought from his mind.

Yuuri’s eyes widen. For a moment, Victor worries he’s going to say no, it’s nothing like that – but then he nods, eyes glittering with desire.

“It is,” he says. “If only we could be married, but two omegas…”

Victor bites his lip. Desire thrums in his chest. He says, “If I asked you to… Would you bond with me?”

“Yes,” Yuuri says, no hesitation this time.

Victor smiles sleepily, touching Yuuri’s nose.

“I’m happy you’re with me, Yuuri,” Victor murmurs.

Yuuri smiles, the expression causing warmth to pool in Victor’s stomach. Yuuri loves him, and he loves Yuuri. Yuuri forgives him for yelling, and he forgives Yuuri for running away. They were both just scared. Victor understands, deeply, going for the devil he knows rather than the devil he doesn’t.

They have each other, now. They don’t have to be alone. Victor never has to be alone ever again.

Yuuri kisses him. He says, “I’m happy you’re with me too.”

It’s all Victor can do not to cry in happiness.

“Miss Katsuki, I’m glad you came to see me,” Celestino says, motioning for Yuuri to sit down in front of him.

Yuuri does so, more than a little wary, and he shifts from side to side in his skirts with his eyes on the exit.

“What’s this I hear about you dropping out?” Celestino continues without preamble, tanned brow arched in concern.

Yuuri winces, and he calls upon all of his strength as he opens his mouth to explain-

“Celestino,” comes a familiar voice, and Yuuri’s blood runs cold. “I have to speak with you about something.”

“Not now, Stefan,” Celestino waves him off, “I’ll be out in just a few moments.”

Doctor Berger snorts and settles himself in the back of the room. Yuuri winces, just his presence enough to make Yuuri feel ill. He has no desire for Doctor Berger to hear this, to have it confirm everything he already thinks about him, about all omegas in medicine.

Doctor Berger snaps, “I don’t see what the point of this is. He’s dropping out, so let him.”

“Stefan,” Celestino hisses.

Yuuri whirls around and snarls directly in Doctor Berger’s face, “I’m not dropping out. I’m transferring to the Omega’s College of Medicine, where I will hopefully actually be able to learn without my classmates and professors attempting to halt my progress at every turn.”

Doctor Berger smirks, unruffled. Yuuri’s blood _boils_.

“They’re not nearly as prestigious,” Celestino attempts to draw his attention back to him, shooting a dark look at Doctor Berger. “You won’t have nearly as many opportunities as you would have here.”

Yuuri frowns. “I truly don’t think it would be worth it to return. I cannot reasonably be expected to practice medicine when I’m being sent dismembered body parts and am forced to heat sickness during exams.”

Doctor Berger snorts again.

Yuuri snaps at him, “But if it doesn’t work out, I’m happy to report that I’ve been offered a position with the London police department. On account of your assistant, Doctor Berger. Do thank him for me, if you see him before he’s put to death.”

“Miss Katsuki,” Celestino warns.

There’s a split-second flash of fury on Doctor Berger’s face, but it’s gone in an instant, replaced by cool impassivity.

“I suppose if you fail at that as well you have another job to fall back on,” Doctor Berger snarls. “You’d be working similarly late hours.”

Cold fury pools in Yuuri’s gut. He hates Doctor Berger so deeply, the anger licking at his insides like flames from a burning house. Why does he keep bringing up Victor. Yuuri’s never seen someone with so much hatred for someone he’s never met.

“_Stefan_,” Celestino snaps. “Perhaps you ought to wait outside.”

Unless…

Victor had flinched when Yuuri brought up his name. Perhaps, then, they have met – and there’s only one way Yuuri can imagine that the two of them would have been brought together.

Victor hates Doctor Berger as much as Doctor Berger hates him, perhaps even moreso. He must have done something then. Something like…

“It was you,” Yuuri breathes, “You’re the doctor that performed Victor’s abortion.”

There’s a long beat of silence. Doctor Berger’s face goes white with shock, his lips pressed together in rage.

Celestino’s gaze flits to Doctor Berger, an unreadable expression on his face. He says, carefully, “Miss Katsuki, you must be aware of what you’re accusing Stefan of.”

Doctor Berger spits out, nearly at the same time, “He told you, did he? Little brat.”

“He didn’t tell me anything,” Yuuri shouts. “Just that one of his clients, a doctor, did it. He described that doctor’s cruelty, and I thought there’s no one else that could match the savagery of Doctor Stefan Berger.”

He spits out his name like it’s a curse, fully out of the chair now, hands clenched into fists at his side.

“Miss Katsuki,” Celestino begins.

Yuuri steamrolls over him, “One of his clients, he said. You miserably, bloody coward, you insult him to my face at every turn while _you’re_ the one spending money to fuck him.”

“Miss Katsuki!” Celestino’s chair clatters to the ground as he shoots up, slack-jawed.

“You think you’re clever for putting that together?” Doctor Berger spits at him, stepping forward. “It’s not a surprise given just how many people he’s been with. You worthless, squealing brat-”

“I’m not worthless,” Yuuri screams, “You’re a massive hypocrite, you’ve been feeling so superior this entire time, but you bought him! How dare you, how dare you pay for him and refuse to grant him even the barest respect, how dare you use him against me all the while knowing what you did-”

Doctor Berger _roars_ and steps forward, but Yuuri doesn’t yield. He shoves him back, shouting, “You bought him! You’re not better than him, you never were! I went toe to toe with Jack the Ripper, do you really think I’m afraid of you?”

“I’ll wring your neck,” Doctor Berger spits, frothing with rage.

“I’d like to see you try,” Yuuri shrieks. “You _coward_.”

“_Enough_,” cries Celestino, stepping between the two of them, broad arms forcing Doctor Berger back and away from him. He turns to Yuuri, shocked, and says, “I think you better go, Yuuri. I still… Perhaps…” He sighs, resigned, and shakes his head. “I wish you luck in all your future endeavors.”

Yuuri nods, sparing one last furious glance back at Doctor Berger, before all but running out of the office.

“Yes, you’d better go,” shouts Doctor Berger at Yuuri’s back. “Don’t you ever come back here, you useless omega bitch-”

The words hit Yuuri, but all he can do is laugh. He’s free, he’s finally free of them. He has no regrets about leaving the college, not after everything they put him through.

Not even as he hears Celestino shout, voice shaking with rage, “Stefan you idiot, he was our _best student_-”

Yuuri is still shaking when he knocks on Yakov’s door later that day.

Yakov swings the door open and nods to Victor, who is bundled up on the couch, reading a book. Victor doesn’t like to be alone for long periods of time, so the few times Yuuri genuinely can’t help it, Victor has stayed with Yakov and Lilia. They’ve been much kinder to him recently, though there’s still a sort of tension around all of their interactions.

“You two should come by for dinner,” Yakov says, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “Lilia picked up a whole chicken at the market. No fun having a roast without company. Besides, Makkachin will like gnawing at the bones.”

Yuuri looks to Victor. Victor smiles nervously.

“I’ll think about it. Thank you, Yakov,” he says.

When they’re finally back in the apartment, Yuuri flings open his suitcase – thinking all the while of the first night he spent here in London, curled up in Victor’s sheets with his clothes lost to the bustling city streets.

Makkachin hops up from her little cushion, rearing up on her hind legs to give Victor’s face lots of happy doggy kisses. Yakov’s all but given her to them – apparently he’d noticed how much she seemed to adore Victor, he’d hoped they could provide each other the support he was never able to give.

Victor hovers nervously, petting Makkachin, and Yuuri knows he wants to ask how the meeting with the professors went, but in a hidden pocket there he has two glistening rings and a deep urge to solidify this new chapter of his life.

“Vitya,” Yuuri shouts, wincing when Victor starts, “I know we can’t officially get married, and I know it would be difficult for you to work again if we’re bonded. But I, you, I mean-”

He loses steam in an instant, going bright red, his voice dropping to a nervous stutter.

Victor’s eyes are wide and blue as the ocean back in Hatsetsu. He murmurs, reverent, as though he can barely believe what’s happening, “Yuuri?”

“Here,” Yuuri blurts out, thrusting one ring in Victor’s direction. Victor raises his slender hand, covered in cheap, sparkling jewels but for one bare finger, and when Yuuri realizes he means for Yuuri to place the ring on him he flushes even redder.

It fits perfectly, the gold band sliding down Victor’s ring finger and catching the sunlight outside.

Someone, at some point, told Victor that he didn’t deserve love or kindness. Someone, more recently than Yuuri would like, told Yuuri the same thing. It doesn’t have to be like that anymore. Yuuri fought off a murderer just to prove it.

“I promise to take care of you from now on,” Yuuri stammers, “No matter what happens.”

Victor swallows. His eyes are still wide, his lips trembling. He takes the second ring and pulls off Yuuri’s glove, and the breath catches in Yuuri’s throat.

“I promise to take care of you, too,” Victor whispers, putting the ring on Yuuri’s finger. Their hands meet, and the rings on them glint brighter than the shine of Victor’s eyes.

Yuuri pulls Victor to him and kisses him fiercely. Their lips touch, the rings on their hands touch, they kiss until Yuuri can’t see or hear or taste anything but Victor, Victor, _Victor_.

In his first few months in London, he’s risen to the top of his medical school, dropped out of medical school, met the love of his life, nearly lost the love of his life, and figured out who Jack the Ripper is. Some days the reality of it is so overwhelming it’s all Yuuri can do but sink to his knees and cry.

“Vitya,” Yuuri says, because he’s worried if he doesn’t say it enough Victor will forget, “I love you.”

In the upcoming weeks, Jack, James Hastings, will be executed. Victor will celebrate his birthday. Yuuri will begin school again, at a brand new place hopefully friendlier than the last, and think about taking cases on as well.

“I love you too,” Victor mumbles, dazedly. Victor’s nose scrunches up cutely when he smiles, just another reminder of how deeply Yuuri loves him. Makkachin _boofs_ happily, curling up again on her cushion and panting, her presence soothing, warm, comforting.

Doctor Berger was wrong about him, Jack was wrong about him, they were all_wrong_.

Somehow, he’s done enough right to have this – and nothing will take it away from him.

**Author's Note:**

> >:3c
> 
> the newspaper clip is an actual contemporary source! found [here](https://www.jack-the-ripper.org/mary-nichols-newspaper-reports.htm)


End file.
